Burning Bright
by Lunar Resonance
Summary: When the night elf Asura slays his partner and stamps out the light elves, a never-ending darkness descends upon Sathros for nearly one hundred years until his powers are mysteriously passed onto a night elf named Soul. Hunted by Asura's agents, Soul flees and comes across a light elf named Maka and they band together.
1. Chapter 1

In the beginning, there was nothing, save the Great Old Ones.

They existed within the netherspace of nothing, dormant and dreaming statues, until the oldest exhaled for the first time and the universe was born. His sister was the first to awaken and as she opened her eyes and set her eyes on the quietly smoldering and unfurling matter of space, time began to flow.

The youngest of the Great Ones, however, was the first to move and the first to speak. He coiled himself a body that would not uproar the newly formed universe and set forth. From his breath were shaped the stars and from his words, he whispered planets into being and took their clay into the palms of his hands and called up animals and plants by the thousands, sprinkling them across the galaxies of the universe.

And as time unraveled and the universe expanded, the youngest Great One came to be known as Death, for everything he created was doomed to die. After eons of traveling and creating, Death reached the heart of the universe. And there, cradled in the center, arose the last and most favored planet to be made from his own hands, Ora.

Ora was equal parts ocean and land, with the water surrounding the sweeping great continent like a vast cloak of liquid azure. From the galaxy's settling stardust, Death called forth the fey folk, murmuring bits of his secrets in their ears as they came into being, so when they moved, it was with a dreamy and airy step that barely grazed the ground and when they gazed upon another living creature, it was with eyes as old as the universe and unsettling as Death.

They settled in Heleskyae, the western half of Ora's continent, filled with rich and verdant woodland with trees that scraped the sky. At the bottom of the Orean ocean dwelled merfolk and sirens within their winter palaces of jet basalt and brightly colored sea shells; in the summer, they sunned on the ocean's surface and roamed their home in groups-elegant creatures moving through the water with the force of a hurricane but gifted with a voice imbued by starlight, scales shining iridescent in the sun.

Across the sea was the land of the dwarves and the elves. Traicor, crowned with craggy mountains and volcanoes and brittle earth stained charcoal from constant eruptions, was home to the dwarves. It is said Death crafted the first dwarf from the molten crust of Ora and it is why dwarves are born with the mountain in their bones and the insatiable urge to dig and live in the stiff gloom of the underground resides in their soul.

Further inland laid Sathros, fertile and rich plains covered with rolling green hills save for the towering mountain from its center, and there lived the final and most cherished of Death's creations, the elves. For his last act, Death drew upon the heavens and remnants of the universe's first breath, tucked among his body's coils, to carefully mold the elves into being. And as he labored over their bodies, shaping their delicate features with precise perfection, he took their souls and laid them out in the open air, allowing the light from the sun to steep in the elves' souls and fill them with life.

As he worked, Death sang in the tongue of the Great Old Ones, song fusing body, soul, and light into one, and when the first elves opened their eyes, Sathros was washed over in the warm, gentle light of a sunrise.

Death smiled. The elves' skin glimmered like sunlight, golden and bright, carrying within them an inherent radiance while his song bestowed unto the elves with the powers of light and day. And as they gathered around Death while he worked, the very air began to hum with their light.

Death was growing weary, however. After eons of living outside his natural realm, his physical form was beginning to wear and decay and he could feel it coming loose from himself like a snake starting to shed its skin. So he began to work faster and faster and so did not notice when the sun slipped beneath the horizon and that the souls he had set out to rest in the light were instead being bound to the cool darkness of the dusk.

It was only as the sun's rays broke across his face as he finished the last elf that he realized his mistake. Unlike their light counterparts, the night elves covered the land around them in a dim twilight, appearing to draw in and erase the light around them. And also unlike the light elves, whom merely gazing upon filled one with day's vitality, the night elves gave the beholder a dreamy sense of peace, their outlines blurred with the gentle haze of dusk as they whispered night down from the sky.

But Death saw the beauty of the night in his children's being, saw the harmony of night and day existing side by side and therefore, despite his error, Death could not bring himself to correct his mistake. Nor did he have the time-as soon as he had finished creating the final night elf, he had felt a deep rumbling with the universe's foundation and knew it to be from his rapidly unraveling form, which he could feel his physical form unwinding faster and faster with every passing moment. And so, giving it no further thought, he departed from the universe and back into the netherspace of nothing and fell into a deep sleep, leaving his creations to live in peace.

But Death did not withdraw from the universe quickly enough; as he passed through the rift to his dimension, fragments of his being broke off and fell back to Ora. While they instantly disintegrated, the magic dwelling within them had a life of its own. They latched onto nearest living animal and transformed them into beings of their own, resembling the elves and looks but holding the unfathomable depths of the universe in their eyes.

These beings called themselves witches. Having once been part of Death, each witch contained some of his magic and used it to link themselves to the animal species they had possessed. As beings not of Ora or even the universe, they did not band together but were content to scatter to the most desolate corners of the continent and follow the sway of their magic.

But there were three witches who wanted more and stayed together: a spider witch, a snake witch and a scorpion witch. Disguising themselves, they settled in the middle of Sathros. And, waiting, they watched the elves.

The elves, being creatures with wills of their own, did not treat the gifts Death had bestowed on them with as the respect and honor as they should have-Death had not realized that where he had seen the complementary nature of light and darkness, they would only see opposites.

The light elves read the night elves' fondness for the dark and their affinity to all night creatures as a sign of something inherently dishonest and evil in their nature. For their part, the night elves took the way the light elves' radiance naturally chased away the darkness within their radius as the light elves declaring their superiority over of being Death's chosen elves and used every excuse to call down night early and force the light elves into their homes.

So while they quickly fell into a relative peace with their dwarven neighbors, struck up a trading alliance with the mermaids and were pleased to find the fey folk had no interest in paying the rest of the world any attention, the elves, unable to see past their differences, immediately divided themselves into a light elf clan and a night elf clan. In an effort for peace, the two clans settled on opposite sides of the great mountain cutting Sathros down the middle-the light elves to the east and the night elves to the west-and, for the most part, were content to ignore the other's existence.

However, it was impossible to completely forget each other's presence-when a night elf called down night, darkness fell on all of Sathros and when a light elf summoned the day, sunlight touched every part of Sathros.

A taut and uneasy tension stretched tight between the two groups. As time went on, stilted communication between the clans degraded into borderline hostility and then, when a fresh attempt for a treaty nearly turned into a fight between the clan leaders, into an ominous silence. Neither side wished for war and so they limited their fighting to the sky, which would turn inky one moment and then shining brightly the next before darkness would muffle out the light again. And where the clans had once tolerated the other, they now refused to stand the sight of each other, expressly forbidding any interaction with the enemy.

Three generations passed with this tug-of-war of the sky before a light elf and night elf crossed paths. Lucia, the daughter of the light elves' leader, was roaming the middle plains near Sathros' mountain one day when she and her horse were beset by a night panther. She fell and her head struck a rock, keeping her from using her powers to defend herself.

Nearby, Tenebrial, the night elves' chief's son, was hunting and heard Lucia's cry. He reached her just before the panther struck and calmed the beast with his powers. Instead of leaving straightaway, he approached Lucia, who had already recovered from her fall, and offered to tend to her wounds.

Having witnessed what he had done, she did not attack or rebuff him and allowed him to bandage her injuries. After he finished, they sat together in silence until the tension between them dissolved-for while both elves had grown up amidst their clan's animosity for the other, neither agreed with their clan's views and were curious about the other. They talked until the sun disappeared beneath the horizon and agreed to meet again the following day before parting ways.

Despite their differences, the two formed a fast friendship, free to speak their minds around each other without worry, and met whenever they were able to slip away without being noticed. From the other, they learned the harmony that could exist between day and night and over time, fell in love.

Knowing they couldn't be together unless the feud between their clans was put to rest, the two resolved to talk to their parents in the time before their next meeting.

Disaster struck before the couple could meet again. During a routine perimeter check, a group of young night and light elves ran into each other on their shared border, Lucia and Tenebrial among them. Biting words were exchanged and although the two tried to calm the hostility, fighting broke out and by the end of the skirmish, both lovers lay dead and a crack shining crimson appeared in the sky.

The tension between the two clans snapped and war descended upon the land with a cold and unforgiving fury. Overnight, the plains of Sathros turned black with scorch marks from the balls of white-hot energy the light elves rained down on the night elves' territory and the air became rife with the howls of the creatures the night elves sent to attack the light elves' villages.

Above Sathros, the war over the sky continued. Its natural blue was swallowed up by swaths of the brightest gold hailing from the north and waves of inky darkness undulating from the south that met in the sky above Sathros' mountain, fingers of light threading through the night only to be beaten back by the darkness.

Meanwhile, the red in the sky, for which both sides blamed the other, continued to spread until one day the elves awoke to find the sky painted in a nightmarish shade of red, leaching away both light and dark. All of Sathros was cast in a bloody light that was neither day nor night, killing off the land's crops and plunging the elves into a sudden and severe famine.

With the poisoning of the sky and land, the dwarves and the mermaids refused to engage in any trade or communication with the elves, taking it as a sign that Sathros had been cursed by the Great Old Ones. Without outside support, supplies ran dangerously low and the dwindling food stores fueled the enmity between the clans even further.

By the time winter fell, the light and night elf clans were in dire straits. The war had dragged on far longer than either side had anticipated and both groups were on the brink of starvation. Run down by exhaustion and hunger, both clans decided to launch a full-scale invasion for supplies and a last-ditch effort to bring the war to an end.

For days, there was no fighting for the first time since war erupted upon Sathros. In a strange quirk of the universe, the two sides chose to attack on the same day and happened upon the other at the same spot where Lucia and Tenebrial had been killed.

Like day pulls at night, the clans' closeness to each other automatically sparked the other's powers to life and with the largest gathering of night and light elves in generations, the tear in the sky finally ripped open, bleeding scarlet mixing with gold and black.

The two clans were too taken aback by the other's presence to notice the sky and immediately set upon the other. But before a single blow could be thrown, everything became doused in the deepest crimson since the sky changed color, halting both armies in their tracks and forcing their gaze upwards.

The labor of the magic used to summon day and night throughout the war had taken its toll on the heavens, wearing at the fraying fabric of the sky until it was splitting from the seams. A deep rumbling sound came from the growing gash and from it plummeted down a comet. In the time it took to draw a breath, the comet bore onto Ora with a searing and blinding flash and slammed straight into Heleskyae.

All of Ora shook with the force of the comet's collision and when the dust had cleared and the ground stopped rocking back and forth, Heleskyae was nothing more than a giant crater, save for a fragment of woodland that barely had been spared from the comet's fallout.

A grim and furious quiet drowned out every other sound as the surviving fey folk emerged from the broken wreckage of their home for the first time since they came into existence, brimming with an implacable rage that would not be satisfied until the world had paid for their loss in kind.

Death, stuck in a deep slumber since he had left the universe, finally awakened with the destruction of Heleskyae. Attuned to all his creations, he saw what was happening and instantly threw on his physical coil in haste, arriving in Sathros just as the fairies entered its borders.

With his ancient magic, he held tight against the moving thread of time, freezing all in place, and looked around. At the sight of the ruined land and the acrid smell of death filling his lungs, his heart grew heavy and he wept for being the cause between the differences between the elves in the first place.

When his tears dried, his gaze fell upon the cooling core of the comet and an idea occurred to him. While he could not reverse the damage the elves had done without breaking some of the most fundamental laws of the universe, he could take measures to ensure a war like this never happened again. Taking the bodies of Lucia and Tenebrial, the only elves who had ever seen as he did, he used his Deathsong to call back their souls from the netherworld. Plucking a shard from the comet, he divided it in two and wound one soul in one half of the shard and the other soul in the other half before returning their souls to their bodies, forging a bond as deep and infinite as the universe between the two souls.

Taking the rest of the comet in his hands, he crafted two scythes, one bright as diamonds and the other dark as ebony. Picking a ray of sunlight and a pocketful of darkness from the heavens with ease, he used his song to give only the scythes the ability to summon the day or night. They could only be used by the two elves whose souls had been formed from the same comet with which the scythes had been created. The souls would be reincarnated the following generations once the wielders passed on, Death decreed, and with the bond running between the souls, neither clan could harm the other without hurting the pair or the balance between night and day, for they were two halves of a whole and connected for life.

Finally, reaching into the hearts of the fey folk, Death calmed their rage and when time began to flow again, they retreated back to the broken fragment of Heleskyae, their grudge against the elves by no means forgotten but at enough peace to go back to ignoring the rest of the world.

Satisfied, Death released his hold on the thread of time and withdrew back to his domain and slept.

With this move, Death had finally succeeded in uniting the elves. They began started to live alongside each other and rebuilt the war-torn Sathros together. Lucia and Tenebrial married and made their home in Sathros' mountain and chose six families, three light and three night, to restore society. The families formed an aristocracy and spent years traveling throughout Sathros, rebuilding the war-torn land before establishing court in Sathros' mountain.

Lucia and Tenebrial preferred to stay out of political matters although they used their status and influence of scythe wielders to mediate conflicts during the merging of the two clans. And every dawn and dusk, the pair would go to the mountain's peak and welcome the day or night together. The light scythe became known as the Grigori scythe and the scythe of night as the Kokketsu scythe and when they passed, their souls moved onto the next generation and the cycle began again.

And throughout all of this watched the three witches.

Having been part of Death's magic, they were unaffected when Death paused time. The moment the spider witch, Arachne set her eyes on Death's scythes, a burning desire for their power ignited within her. It only took a few words with her sisters, who hungered for the chaos the scythes could wreak, of her plan to seize power.

And so they went back into hiding and they waited and in the meantime, a peaceful harmony settled among the elves, throughout the continent and all of Ora, and the world lived in tranquility for three thousand years.

Until nearly a hundred years ago-when Asura slew the light elf wielder.


	2. Chapter 2

"You're quiet." The flickering candlelight turns Wes' flaxen hair to gold as he shifts from where he sits perched on the edge of Soul's bed. "Quieter than usual," he amends. "What do you think?"

His azure eyes, supposedly the true color of the sky, gaze at Soul expectantly. Soul's heard the whispers when he and Wes go to visit at Asura's mountain, that the light elf blood from their ancestors had run too thick in Wes, that he couldn't be trusted. But anyone who has seen Wes in action knew he was a night elf through and through-besides a light elf hadn't been seen in ninety years.

"Soul?" Wes says.

"Well…" Soul trails off as his eyes slide to the set of jagged teeth floating to the right of Wes' head. A fog of red and black mist materializes and shapes itself into Oni's leering head. He swallows and forces himself to look back at Wes. "I think that you're risking getting thrown in prison for spreading blasphemy about Asura."

"The truth is not blasphemy," answers Wes.

"And how do you know it's the truth?" Outside of his window, the wind howls with a bitter shriek and Oni begins to whistle. Soul's heart starts to the pound but he doesn't move his gaze from his brother. "There's only rumors, no one knows what happened to Vajra."

"There's one who does. I met her when I was in the forest a few weeks ago." Wes runs a hand through his hair pensively before giving his head a shake. "Do you want to hear the rest of the story?"

Oni stops whistling and opens his mouth, onyx eyes glittering with malice.

Soul speaks quickly. "Yes."

* * *

For three thousand years, the witches waited. None of the scythe wielders Arachne sent her spiders to whisper temptation listened until the night elf Asura became the Kokketsu scythe's wielder.

Asura was born with his soul completely stained in night. There was no room for light and like the night elves before the civil war, he shunned the light and lived perpetually shrouded in darkness. He resented his duties and hid away from the day and light elves, except from his partner Vajra, the only light elf he trusted. Still, there were many times that night ran on longer than usual because Asura did not want to release night's hold on Sathros. However, Vajra was kind and understanding and in time, Asura could have changed his ways, had it not been for the witches.

When Arachne saw how he feared the light, she knew they had found the one they'd been searching for and sent her spiders to him. She weaved her trap patiently, picking at the threads of Asura's sanity and comforting him during his fits of panic in equal measure. And after many months, she called him into the forest separating Sathros and Traicor and immediately enchanted him.

From then on, Asura spent his nights in the forest with Arachne and her sisters. When he would return to the mountain, Shaula, the scorpion witch, transformed into her familiar's form and came with him in secret; she used her manipulation magic to influence the behavior of those around him so Asura lost what remained of his trust, even in Vajra. Arachne became his sole confidant and continued building up his paranoia so she was the only he could rely on.

However, she did not make her move until Asura had unraveled into nothing more than a half-mad puppet, coming to her one night wrapped in scarves and raving of plots against him. She talked him into giving her and her sisters a place in his mountain and they were given the highest place in court, second to Asura and Vajra. While the witch continued to drive the wedge between him and Vajra even further, Medusa built of an army of familiars in secret and Shaula began brainwashing high-ranking night elves and used them to spread rumors of Vajra wanting to break her bond with Asura. In vain, Vajra and Asura's counsel tried to warn him of the danger but he was too deeply rooted in his paranoia to listen and continued to favor the three.

One month after the witches arrived, Arachne set the final stage of her plan in motion. Just before dawn, she went to Asura, who was in the midst of his nightly panic attack over having to bring in the day. She coaxed him to drop the veil of darkness around him and gave him a drink laced with a potion made by Medusa that would amplify his powers and make his aversion to light intolerable. And after drawing him out of his fit, she sent him off to meet Vajra.

The light elf was already waiting when Asura walked out onto the peak of Sathros' mountain. She raised the Grigori scythe before he could shield himself and as the sun broke over the horizon, rays of light fell onto Asura's face.

Under the influence of the potion, it was as if the light was boring holes into his skin and he took it as an attack from Vajra. With one blow of the Kokketsu scythe, Asura ran her through and sent the Grigori scythe over the peak's edge. And as the scythe hit the ground and snapped in two, an unnatural gloom descended upon Sathros, sending the land into a permanent dusk.

The witches worked swiftly. Arachne sent her spiders to retrieve Vajra's body and the Grigori scythe before going to Asura, who had fled the moment he realized what he had done. She found him in his room, huddled in the shadows. Without Vajra's bond to ground him, Asura was lost forever to the fear and darkness and was easily persuaded to accept Arachne's suggestion to declare himself king.

Meanwhile, Medusa organized an army of their familiars in secret and Shaula used her magic to induce several high-ranking night elves to announce that, unable to accept Asura, Vajra had left Sathros with the Grigori scythe and doomed the land to live in eternal darkness.

The light elves knew this was a lie for they had felt Vajra's death in their hearts the moment she had been killed, but they had been stripped of their powers when the Grigori scythe broke. Having seen the witches' powers and army of familiars, they knew going against them would mean certain death. Unable to denounce them or Asura, they met later and agreed to leave Sathros in small groups to avoid arousing suspicion. But when the next day arrived, all of the light elves had disappeared.

When news of the light elves' disappearance spread, the night elves, who had been dubious of the three witches, had no choice but to accept their departure as a sign of their and Vajra's so-called deceit. Out of loyalty to Asura, they supported him becoming their king and preparations for his coronation were promptly started.

It was here that a stranger stepped forward. Unbeknownst to even Arachne and her sisters, there had been another witch who stayed behind. Her name was Mabaa and she was gifted with the universe's omniscience. She had sprang up fully formed when she fell to Ora and therefore needed no familiar. Born out of the piece closest to Death's heart, she possessed his wisdom and was the most just of the witches.

But because the heart is an easy thing to break, she was also the most fragile. With her all-seeing eyes, she watched the three witches and their wickedness but she knew she was no match to confront them directly.

However, she saw an opportunity to act at Asura's coronation. She attended the event held within Sathros' mountain in disguise. And just as the crown was about to be placed on Asura's head, she strode forward, shedding her mask. Before any of the witches could stop her, she invoked her gift for prophecy, saying:

"The fated words, oh hark!

When by the ravenous dark,

Swallowed are the gentle beams of day.

Else everlasting night,

Of endless death and blight,

A thousand thousand hours shall they reign.

And elves' sorrow and pain,

E're fixt when two are 'twain.

Until faint light within the darkness burns.

That candle burning bright,

In concert with the night,

Become the dawn, the world again at peace."

After she finished speaking, with a sweep of her cloak, the witch disappeared in a plume of smoke.

Her words sent the night elves into an uproar and for three days and nights chaos reigned supreme in Sathros. The witches' army of familiars attacked but the night elves were not easily crushed and put up a fierce fight, laying a siege on Sathros' mountain from where Arachne and her sisters observed the uprising.

The battle went back and forth between the two sides many times but on the third night, the witches had enough entertainment and ground out the resistance like the heel of a boot squashes an insect. At a signal from Arachne, Shaula took control of the night elves she had cast her manipulation spells on and bent them to her will. The plains of Sathros ran red with blood as brother turned against brother.

When Arachne was satisfied the spirit of the rebellion had been thoroughly broken, she gave for the order to stop and walked out among the survivors. Although she could have easily seized power from the maddened Asura, she had no interest in ruling and gave the night elves a choice: swear fealty to Asura or join their kin in death. Very few chose the latter.

In the early years of Asura's reign, the night elves waited hopefully, sure that one day the light elves would return and restore light to Sathros. But as time passed, the dusk grew into the black pitch of night and doubt ate into their conviction and as the survivors of the rebellion died out one by one, the truth began to die with them.

Eventually, the only sliver of the truth that survived was Mabaa's prophecy. First passed along as a quiet act of defiance, the years leached her words of their original meaning and they became a mere rhyme for parents to recite to their children at bedtime.

And so the elves' hope, once burning bright, faded into the darkness of Sathros' era of night."

* * *

The high-pitched whine of the blizzard is all that could be heard in the room as Wes finishes speaking. Even Oni has fallen quiet. Soul studies the pattern of his blanket before talking. "So what you're implying to me," he looks up finally, "Is that an ancient witch told you all this and you believe it?"

Wes hesitates. "Not told as much as shown." His eyebrows knit together. "Mabaa has a unique way of storytelling that makes it...difficult to doubt her."

"Why would she tell you all of this?"

His brother rubs a lock of his wheat-colored hair between his fingers. "Case of mistaken identity."

The broken rasp of Oni's laugh derails Soul's train of thought. " _Soon,"_ he croons as he floats to the ceiling. " _Soon."_

His nails bite into the soft flesh of Soul's palms and irritation blunts his voice. "And I'm supposed to play the gullible child and believe you?"

His brother has the grace not to look to where his eyes keep wandering. "You don't have to," Wes answers simply. "I just want you to have all the facts before deciding who to believe."

Guilt and shame sink into his chest like a stone. "I believe you," he says finally, adding on in a mutter. "You know I do." He throws a glare at the air next to his brother's head. "What's the point in telling me the truth? It doesn't change anything."

"To put you on your guard," his brother answers lightly. The smile doesn't leave his face but his voice frosts over. His eyes flicker up to the ceiling, a full ten feet from where Oni is. The candlelight makes the narrow scar just underneath his jawline visible. "Had many visits from your friend lately?"

Oni's words crawls on his skin like fire ants. " _Soon it'll just be you and me."_

"Not often," Soul lies. "Voices mostly."

"Good, good." Wes pauses. "And when you're in the mountain-"

"I wasn't born with a talent," he answers, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. "I _know_."

"You know I have to check." A real smile flashes across his brother's face before vanishing abruptly. "They would use you if they found out, Soul. There's already been too many close calls and I'm not going to be here if there's another."

The reminder digs in his side like a thorn. A wave of bitterness washes over him and loosens the knot around his throat. "If you're so concerned, why go at all? Why fight for someone you don't believe in?"

"The truth doesn't change the fact that we're orphan brothers," Wes answers, sighing. "And even being nobility, there's not much of a choice given to us."

Soul had already guessed as much when the summons for Wes had arrived but hearing it still burns. He swallows the rest of the words sitting on his tongue and nods. Wes' hand rests on his shoulder and squeezes comfortingly. "This is only to prove my loyalty. I'm not going to be gone long."

He nods again.

"Well, that's enough excitement for one night." With a final pat on his arm, Wes rises and stretches. "Good night, Soul."

His eyes move to the demon spirit unfurling shadows and nightmares on the ceiling. Teeth gleaming like diamonds shine down on him. " _And then we'll have lots of fun."_

Soul closes his eyes and prays for a nightmare strong enough to drown out Oni's voice. "Good night."


	3. Chapter 3

_She is stuck in the dark and she is burning. She doesn't know if there was a time when she wasn't._

 _The fire is internal, rooted somewhere in her chest and fingers of flame light down her arms and legs but as much as it burns and burns, she does not snuff out. She stays locked in her inferno and sometimes she wishes she was actually on fire so she could dissolve into ashes._

 _She can no longer tell if these moments are periods of sanity or insanity._

 _Her only companions are the images that flash by her, temporarily illuminating the dark. They're soft when they're close enough to touch; they feel like memories because a name blooms on her tongue when she runs her hand through them but they always wink out into nothingness before she can remember._

 _One by one, the memories dry up and disappear and she becomes less and less sure that she exists. Her body is only real when she's holding a memory, without them she can only burn._

 _An eternity or a second passes by with no memories before a new feeling rises up and overtakes the never-ending fire in her soul._

 _It's cold and sharp and paralyzing and travels through her body with a slow patience. it finally reaches her heart, she recognizes it as fear. She almost prefers to burn-fear doesn't allow her to rest and the more she writhes, the stronger it becomes._

 _She doesn't realize it's amplifying for a reason until a new memory, burning the brightest of them all, swallows her whole._

* * *

 _She's in a castle by the looks of the corridor she's in, she thinks. She breathes in the dank mustiness of the air. Or maybe a mountain._

 _There's fighting going on in the floors below her, yells mixing with the sound of weapons clashing. An explosion from somewhere behind her nearly rocks her off-balance. This floor too, she amends._

 _Elven soldiers and creatures weaved from darkness spill out into the corridor. They pass through her like she's air but she's too struck by the pair of elves that just went through her to be surprised. One of them is bedecked in white and gold armor, green eyes glowing with a familiar determination, while the other is as pale as the moon and sheathed in silver and black armor, raven-colored hair swinging over her shoulder as she hooks a chain scythe into one of the creatures._

 _A second explosion sends pieces of stone crumbling from the ceiling. The dark-haired elf shouts something to the green-eyed elf that she can't make out above the din and the green-eyed elf breaks off from the fighting and sprints down the corridor, shunting those in her path out of the way._

 _She follows the elf. She knows her, of that she is certain. A name jumps on the tip of her tongue and her mind aches with the weight of forgotten memories._

 _Staying one step behind the elf, they burst into a hall strangely devoid of any elves. She casts a look around the hall and her eyes fall on a broken scythe that seems to emit its own light resting on a pedestal in front of them._

 _As soon as she lays her eyes on the scythe, she knows, she knows who she is, she knows what she needs to do. She rushes forward, the Grigori scythe is here, within her sight, within her grasp..._

" _Always too slow, little rabbit."_

 _She lunges for the scythe and lets out a triumphant cry as she reaches the pedestal, whirling around to slay the elf that stole her people from her._

 _Her hands are empty._

 _The scythe still rests on the pedestal._

 _No one looks at her, notices her at all._

 _She tries to pick up the scythe and her fingers pass through it like water._

 _An icy fear laces around her heart and she raises her eyes to see the green eyed elf-her-caught like an animal in a snare by an elf who oozes of madness. His face is hidden by a shroud of darkness but she can hear the laughter in his voice as he holds tight of the arm of her memory self._

" _Too slow."_

 _The memory shatters._

* * *

 _The darkness erases everything._

 _Except her._

 _But finally, she has stopped burning._

 _There's quiet._

 _Q_

 _u_

 _i_

 _e_

 _t._

 _Nothing._


	4. Chapter 4

_Ten Years Later_

* * *

Smoke is bleeding from Soul's lungs.

Choking on the ashes of his soul, he claws for air with the desperation of a drowning elf, finding nothing but fire and ruin. All around him looms a darkness that nips at his skin, as if deciding the best way to devour him. The need to breathe intensifies into a throbbing ache radiating from his head and he fights and he struggles but still he suffocates.

Like a candle hit by a draft of wind, his energy flickers out. His limbs go limp and his vision turns blurry as he waits to die.

And just before the darkness comes alive to claim him, a voice calls out to him. It is only a whisper but it anchors itself in his chest, quiet but fierce.

And even though he still can't breathe, he has never felt so alive.

And even though he has never heard that voice before, a thousand memories rise up and he wants, he _needs_ to find its owner.

He would follow it anywhere, he thinks, as the darkness swallows him whole.

The sound of Soul smacking his head on the bunk above him as he jolts awake echoes loudly in the dead silence of the barracks and sends a ripple of muffled groans from the bunks surrounding his.

There are noises of Harvar, the elf who had the unfortunate luck to be assigned his bunk mate, shifting around. His voice is a half-hearted grumble. "Again?" He doesn't bother sticking his head over the bunk's edge to check on him.

"Sorry," Soul whispers as he creeps out of his bunk, pointedly ignoring the invisible laughter floating above his head like a vulture.

Only some of the sunposts spaced out in the corridors of the mountain are on as Soul heads upward, waiting until he is far away enough from the barracks before leveling a baleful glare at Oni.

He addresses the night demon for the first time in nearly half a year. "I told you to stay the hell out of my head."

" _Hard to do when I'm a part of your head."_ Oni's mouth is spread in a near-feral grin as he snaps his fingers to a beat only he seems to hear. " _Although I had nothing to do with tonight's dream."_

"Liar," Soul hisses.

" _I've known you for longer than you can remember."_ Oni circles Soul lazily, voice rasping gratingly through his ears. _Your problems don't begin and end with me, Soul."_

Shame and anger twist in his gut and Soul shuts his mouth with an audible click, rather than let Oni hear the tremor in his voice and stalks off into the dark, berating himself. The only thing confronting Oni did was give the demon a chance to antagonize him and for that, as well as for the majority of his problems, he had no one but himself to blame.

Letting his feet lead, the tension in his body slowly leaches away the longer he roams the mountain. There is an honesty in the darkness that light does not provide, a chance to "strip away the masks and give our real faces a chance to breathe" as Wes used to put it.

His footsteps falter as Soul spins his thoughts away from a knot of memories and emotions, the only things making up his brother now. He quickens his pace, as if he could outrun his mind, and counts his heartbeats until he can trust himself to think freely again.

An exhaustion that has been chipping away at his soul for the past ten years since his brother died rises up and drains away any kind of energy to do anything. Leaning against a flickering sunpost, he sits and covers his eyes with his forearm.

While what Wes had said was true, he hadn't mentioned that there wasn't much joy in taking off his mask unless there was someone next to him to see it.

Soul doesn't recognize the tingling sensation on his skin for what it is until the heady taste of the witches' magic is lying heavy on his tongue, singing to the magic dwelling in his veins. Panic sends his heart into a frenzy and he clamps down against the magic surging in his hands.

Scrambling to his feet, a cold fear grips him as he catches wind of a saccharine and melodious voice he's only heard from a distance, recognizing it at once.

Arachne.

The bedtime tales his brother used to tell him replay in his head like a death toll. Arachne's voice is too close for him to run without being heard but rows of doors lined up and down the corridors offer sanctuary.

Every noise he makes as he moves to the closest door rings in his ears and he curses his feet and mouths a silent supplication to Death for the first time in his life, easing the door open and sliding into an empty study. Footsteps rounding the corner keep him from shutting the door and he huddles by the wall next to the door, holding his breath.

Another voice is speaking-he recognizes the high-pitched whine of Arachne's sister Shaula and he thanks his rarely lucky stars that is her accompanying Arachne and not the owl-eyed and ruthless Medusa.

Over the buzz of Oni's voice in his ear and the pounding of his heart, he can't make out what she is saying but the the throb of the magic in his skin tells him exactly how close the two are.

It swells to an overwhelming crescendo as the two pass the study and in the one moment it takes for them to walk past, his control slips; his magic teeters on the edge of overflowing through his fingers and he does the only thing he can do and bites down on his hand so hard he tastes blood instantly.

It's not enough.

"Hold on a moment." The sisters' footsteps pause as Arachne speaks.

Soul dares a peek through the crack between the door hinge and the wall and he catches a glimpse of the pair; Arachne stares in his direction, lips pursed in contemplation, while Shaula looks at her curiously.

He pulls back and bites his hand even harder, the heat of the magic begging to be released from his body burning him from the inside out.

The magic does not pull to him, he tells himself. Pain lights from his hand and every fiber in his being wants to let go but he refuses. The magic does not excite every sense in his body, it does not entice him. He does not want to use his magic.

Oni's voice is almost gentle. " _Why are you lying to yourself, Soul? Why are you denying yourself?"_

He dredges up the image of Wes and the scar that spanned underneath his jaw. The one that he put there.

The pain from biting his hand has been replaced by a spreading numbness and his jaw is growing tired from clenching so tightly but still the call of the witches' magic to his remains.

He will not use his magic.

Soul risks another look through the crack.

Arachne's eyes meet his.

He's caught, doomed, dead. Briefly, he wonders if this is something to be mourned or celebrated.

Then, the witch turns back to her sister. "Let's go."

"Why did you stop?" The scorpion witch peers around her.

Arachne begins to move away. "No reason."

Shaula trails after her. "Yes, there was."

"No, there wasn't."

Soul waits until he can no longer hear their voices or feel their magic prodding at his bones before prying his teeth from his hand. He avoids looking at the bloody mess he's made of his hand and swallows the coppery taste in mouth; the only finger he can move is his pinky, the rest refuse to even wiggle in the slightest.

His legs give out from under him and he slumps to the floor, holding his hand away from the rest of his body. Resting his head on the wall, he makes his fingers bend and wipes away the tears that spring to his eyes.

Oni is silent for once.

One year. He had only been meant to spend one year in the mountain, as was required of all nobility when they came of age. One year of hiding his abilities, of hiding Oni's existence, of pretending he was normal. Because if any of his teachers or the witches found out about his powers, he would be forced into the Night Guard, the small lethal force that served as Asura's personal bodyguards.

Not only would he rather die than join the guard but the guard reeked of magic. He wouldn't last a day before Oni took control.

And he had managed, he had done well, even with minor outbursts from Oni.

But then Wes had died a month before Soul was due to leave, supposedly caught in an attack by enemy dwarves, which was why his body was never found. Soul had been enrolled in the non-gifted part of the military, nobility in name only. As the years passed, he had slowly killed and buried the hope that one day Wes would come walking through the barracks door.

Soul breathes in and pushes himself to his feet.

Now, he spends his days walking barefoot on the broken shards of his mind and pretending he is whole.

It's not a way to live but he hasn't been alive in a long time.


	5. Chapter 5

Shaula is still poking at her with questions and pleas when they get to Asura's quarters.

Arachne dismisses her sister with a wave of her hand. "I've already made my decision on the matter."

"But-"

She silences her off with a single look. "The Grigori scythe will stay in the mountain until the new year."

"That's three months from now." Her sister swells with indignation. "Why do you and Medusa always have the final say on things?"

"It's not becoming for a witch of your stature to whine like a child." Arachne's hand lays on the door to Asura's room. "It's only three months. Then the light elf will be eliminated and you can do with the scythe whatever you like."

The petulant look on her face doesn't leave but she straightens. "Anything?"

"Yes." She pats her on the shoulder. "Now go. You know how suspicious he is of everyone now."

"Except you." Shaula wrinkles her nose. "Have you ever considered what would happen if he turned on you?"

"It is no use wondering about things that won't happen." Arachne remains unruffled, tossing her hair over her shoulder. "Make sure that you tell Medusa about tomorrow."

"She's not going to go." Shaula starts to move away. "And she's going to avoid you."

"Precisely my point." Arachne opens the door and slips inside.

The darkness Asura spreads with his presence is different from normal darkness; it doesn't cover light like the night does-it obliterates it.

Much like the night elf she found hiding in their study. She had been able to do nothing about him then, without raising Shaula's suspicions, but she would have to find a way soon.

A voice comes from the corner of the room. "I don't want to go."

She makes Asura out with her other senses and steps delicately around the piles of scarves scattered across the room. "Go where?"

"Don't patronize me." He snaps up from where he knelt crouched against the wall.

"I would never do that." Arachne stops just outside of arm's reach from him.

The jerky movements as he stumbles forward, pinching at his exposed skin, tells her how agitated he is; she accepts him with open arms and he speaks.

"I don't want to go," he repeats.

"You need to show you are well." Her hands rest lightly on his shoulders. "It's only a ball and autumn is the season of dusk and shadow. You must be there to welcome it."

"They're going to look at me." Panic seeps in Asura's words. "They're going to _see_ me."

She moves a hand to the back of his head. "I will be there the whole time."

He stops picking at his wrists. "You will?"

"I promise."

A beat of silence passes before Asura talks again. "Why can't she be killed now?"

"Because it hasn't been a century yet," Arachne answers patiently. "If we killed her now, her soul would just be reborn and it would take another century to wipe out the light again."

"But there's no light elf for the soul to be reborn into."

Nearly one hundred years of masking careful half-lies with Asura's idea of the truth come crashing down. Still, Arachne does not tense or show her hand but merely pauses. He is too paranoid now to swallow a lie. She speaks slowly. "They weren't all killed."

His hand moves from her back to her neck quicker than she blinks.

"What?"

"We thought they had all been killed." She knows better than to pull away or look at him. "But we were wrong."

His fingers press into the soft flesh of her neck. "When did you find out?"

"Only weeks ago," she answers honestly. "They hide in the ranges of Traicor but Medusa will hunt them down."

"Why didn't you tell me?" His grip loosens ever so slightly.

"If I didn't tell you, it was to keep you from worrying." Arachne lifts her head. "You know I would never betray you."

He hesitates for a moment and then his hand falls away and he leans his head against her chest. "I'm sorry."

"There is nothing to be sorry for," Arachne murmurs softly. Asura's temper is like an inferno; it only blazes for a short time before dying away and she has long since learned to withstand and calm his fury. "It's only three more months."

Abruptly, the darkness vanishes; in the case of Asura, the absence of darkness does not make light and his face appears deathly in the not-light. "Then I won't have to be afraid anymore?"

Arachne begins to stroke his hair. "Never again."


	6. Chapter 6

"One more round?" Harvar's voice is muted, as if coming from a very great distance.

Soul stares up at the blackened sky, sprawled out on his back on the packed dirt of the sparring grounds. The grainy light coming from the sunposts blurs as Oni's voice echoes in his ears, magic beating underneath his skin like a second heart, demanding to be set free. He twitches his bandaged hand and welcomes the sting from the newly sewn-in stitches, speaking as the sway of magic dies away. "Does it really look like I have it in me?"

"Fair enough." There's a flicker of movement on his right. The sunpost's light reflects off Harvar's metallic glasses. "Your fighting is more awful than usual," he offers by way of apology for nearly knocking him out cold.

"I was not born to fight," Soul replies. "In the slightest."

"Of course you were," he answers, reaching out a hand. "You were born, weren't you?"

"And there lies the problem." He takes Harvar's hand and stands, stretching his protesting muscles. "Along with your right hook."

"That's life, isn't it?" The corner of his mouth upturns briefly and he turns, signaling the end of the conversation.

Soul snorts at his back. Abrasive, taciturn and perpetually grumpy, he still prefers Harvar's company out everyone else he has met in Baba Yaga; Harvar was honest about who he was at least, hailing from a speck of a village from one of the northern provinces of Sathros, and one of the few elves not of noble blood to gain a spot within Baba Yaga's guard.

He was also one of the only elves he had met who didn't have the scent of the witches' magic stained in his skin nor jumped at the first opportunity to stab someone in the back to curry favor with the witches.

Stealing a glance at the giant clock tower that stands in the middle of the training grounds, Soul decides it's close enough to dinner that he won't be called out if he leaves early. Exhaustion tugs down on his eyelids-it's not even noon and he's already done with the day. Maybe if he'll be able to find a quiet corner and nap in peace before his patrol shift.

Or as much peace he could get, he thinks as his eyes dart up and down for Oni; the night demon has disappeared since popping up at the end of his last match with Havar but he can't be too far away.

A quiet, cool voice cuts in from behind him as he walks off the grounds. "You could have beaten that other elf in your last match."

Soul nearly jumps a foot in the air, spinning around to find the captain known as the Demon Shadow in front of him, named so for her apt ability to ambush and immobilize even the most lethal of enemies without being seen.

"You hesitated towards the end." She tilts her head to one side much like a predator deciding whether he was prey or not. "Why did you hold back?"

Palms going clammy, he swallows and eyes the raven-haired elf nervously. For the past three years of serving under her, his only goal has been to slip by unnoticed by her; Arachne's magic undulates from the shadow tattoos criss-crossing her arms and any time he spends longer than five minutes in her presence makes him feel like he's drowning.

Moreover, in the time that he's lived in Baba Yaga, Soul has seen the effect magic had on elves. In the captain's case, it had made her ruthless. On their first day of training three years ago, one of the elves had dared to call the captain by her first name to her face. The name "Tsubaki" had barely made it from his lips before he had been flung to the ground with a dagger in his side. His wound was not life-threatening but the next one would be, she had informed the screaming elf as she'd stood up and dusted off her gloves.

There had been a few times he had seen something like compassion flicker briefly in her face, as if the elf she had been was trying to re-surface, but he was not willing to gamble on that.

Licking his lips, he struggles to find his voice. "I didn't hesitate, Harvar is a better fighter than me."

Her eyes narrow nearly imperceptibly. "That's not what I saw."

Soul's skin begins to itch as the magic stirs to life inside of him. He doesn't dare contradict her but he needs to leave before he begins losing his mind. Weighing his words carefully, he says, "Hand-to-hand combat has never been my specialty." He tries to sound as nonchalant as possible. "Maybe I got the upper hand once but I lost it pretty quick."

"A good thing you were never recruited for the Guard."

Soul turns to see Giriko, commander of the Night Guard, strolling up to the two with his eyes on fixed on him and silently asks how his day can get any worse.

Unlike Tsubaki, Giriko carries no stench of magic on him at all. Yet in the entire history of Sathros, there has never been another soldier with a kill count as high as his-there had never been any survivors in any conflict he had been involved in nor any recognizable bodies after the dust of the battle settled. He even walks with the march of an executioner, fingers constantly fidgeting at his side.

Some elves just bleed destruction.

"There is no room for the weak," he continues as he comes to stand by Tsubaki's side.

The captain stiffens slightly but her voice remains collected. "Commander, welcome. How can I help you?"

"We need a hand in the security for the equinox ball tonight." Giriko nods over to Soul. "Lady Arachne chose him specifically."

Soul's blood solidifies. "Why me?"

A feral grin spreads across Giriko's face. "I haven't the faintest idea why."

There is no way that this and Arachne seeing him earlier weren't connected. None of the elves had ever been able to sense Oni but what if she had?

"But-" He searches wildly for an excuse. "I have patrol tonight."

The commander turns his smile to Tsubaki. "I'm sure the captain will have no problem in sparing you if Lady Arachne wishes it."

Soul flicks his gaze to the captain, silently pleading for her to refuse.

For a moment, something bright flashes in her eyes and softness warms her face. Then the light fades and Tsubaki straightens. "Do what the the commander says. I'll find someone else to cover your spot."

The words are out of Soul's mouth before he can check himself. "And if I don't?"

Giriko's grin shifts into a something bordering a snarl. "It's not a request. You're expected in the great ballroom in an hour."

He turns and leaves Soul with the feeling of a hole growing in the pit of his stomach.

"It won't be that bad." Tsubaki's words are abrupt. She looks at Soul and blinks and the rest of the light disappears from her face. "Make sure to comport yourself like I taught you," she says.

With that, she leaves as well.

Soul gazes up at the blanket of darkness covering Sathros, pushing the burgeoning dread festering in him to the back of his mind for the moment. He imagines how real light would feel against his skin, whether it would be gentle or harsh. The light that comes from Medusa's enchanted sunposts doesn't count; that light latches to him like a leech, like it was rooting for a way into his body.

Running a hand through his hair, he begins the slow walk back to the mountain. He doesn't know what holds him here-he could have deserted a long time ago and hardly anyone would have noticed or cared.

Maybe he's too afraid of discovering that the tangled mess of his mind stays the same whether he's in Sathros or not, suggests a voice from the back of his mind that's not Oni for once.

That the problem was always him.

Grinding his teeth, he quickens his step and buries the thought.


	7. Chapter 7

The old witch quietly surveys Sathros' mountain with her all-seeing eyes. Although it has been only decades since she left, the land is stained eternal by the unnatural night. The three sisters' magic permeates the air, sticking to her lungs like smoke.

And after nearly one hundred years, the curse has begun to bleed through to rest of Ora; if it isn't stopped soon, the rest of the world will be thrown into chaos.

The witch's heart, the first piece of her being she had created, keeps its steady beat as she starts to head in the direction of the looming mountain. What she plans on doing will most likely mean the death of her, it occurs to her.

There's a small hiccup in her step and then she continues on her way.

* * *

Even before Oni and his outbursts had made socializing a hinderance, Soul loathed parties with a fierce, irrational passion. They were the emotional equivalent of having fire ants crawl over his bare skin and his parents, while they had been alive, had insisted on him attending each one they were invited to so he could learn all of the social skills befitting of a second son of a minor noble.

Learning how to fade and blend into a crowd had been one of the few skills Soul had actively retained and it comes in handy now as he circles the ballroom with a casual, unaffected air, on alert for the distinctive aura of Arachne's magic.

Although the magic he carries may make all his efforts useless, especially if Oni decides to make a scene.

He shoves the thought out of his head. So far masking himself with the rest of the guests' magic has shielded him from being sensed by Shaula, who arrived in the hall without either of her sisters, and the black uniform he was forced into for the evening has already gotten him mistaken as one of the military guests more than once so he should be safe among the rest of the guests.

And while the weight of Giriko's gaze weighs heavily on his back at the beginning, the longer the ball went on, the more attention the commander paid attention to the pretty elves making eyes at him and less to Soul.

He can make it through the ball, he thinks as he wends his way through the throng of elves. Just a few more hours.

A frigid tension fills the air as the great doors to the hall swing open and Arachne and Asura step inside. The witch carries herself with an elegant composure, pale skin like porcelain in the light and raven-colored hair swept up in a bun.

Meanwhile a discordant grinding noise follows Asura as he plods forward and drags the Kokketsu scythe against the ground, ebony blade casting a gloom about it. The night elf is a living wraith; the dark tunic he wears hangs off of him and his unkempt hair stands in all directions.

There is a moment of clarity, a beat of recognition that runs through Soul's body before the night begins to drown him from the inside out. His hands shake as his nails bite into his palms. There was a reason that he never came within a hundred feet of Asura and he feels it in its entire force now.

No one else heeds him, moving back in unison from the approaching pair to give a wide berth. Asura eyes the crowd with a fearful expression, gaze darting from one end of the crowd to the other. Arachne pays no attention to any of it, leading Asura like a condemned prisoner to the front of the ballroom.

Her eyes fall on Soul as she passes by him and in that instant, he knows that she wants him dead.

But her gaze fixes Soul in place like a puppet though and he can't find the will in him to run or even turn his head; above him, Oni is similarly transfixed.

Giriko and Shaula join Arachne when she and Asura come to the front, flanking her right. She lifts her head and gives her audience a crystalline smile. "Welcome."

Arachne doesn't raise her voice but it echoes in the dread-filled silence of the ballroom. "With the dawning of the new year drawing closer, it will mark a century since sunlight last touched Sathros." The tension in the room stretches taut but her stance remains lax. "We were never meant to survive without day but we have."

She takes a step forward. "We were never meant to-"

From the back of the ballroom, the doors burst open with a resounding clang and an old woman, face hidden by an oversized hat and hunched over with age, enters.

She is a witch-Soul isn't sure how he knows this but he does.

An unnatural silence descends upon the entire ballroom as the wizened witch walks toward Arachne. She raises her hand and the guards rushing toward her freeze.

Her voice is like a withered tree. "It has been a long time."

She brings her hand down like a sword and there is a flash of blinding light.

And then nothing.

* * *

 _Soul is standing over his body and he wonders if this means he's dead-he thought dying entailed a lot more pain and suffering._

 _Only the body on the ground is not his._

 _But it_ _ **is**_ _him._

 _Soul is very confused._

 _He examines the body- tanned skin, dark hair and empty eyes staring into nothing- for a moment more before looking around himself. He recognizes the plains outside of Baba Yaga by the mountain in the background but, like himself, it's not the plains he knows: the plains are green with grass and wildflowers, the air is filled birdsong and the sun-_

 _Abruptly, Soul squints up at the brightly lit sky, confusion increasing exponentially._

" _There you are."_

 _The strange witch stands in front of him. Her face is a spiderweb of crinkled skin, eyes two jet pools of the universe's depths. A thick fog emanates from underneath her feet and rapidly swallows up everything but the two of them._

 _Soul finds his voice. "Who are you?"_

 _The witch smiles, a jagged crevice on her face. "You know already."_

 _He should, he knows he should but her name escapes him._

" _Child of the night, may you find the gentle beams of the day," she breathes._

 _He frowns, taking a step towards her. "What do you mea-"_

 _Before his eyes, she vanishes and the fog melds into coils of darkness. They wrap around Soul's ankles and yank him down, casting into an ocean of night._

 _Thrashing wildly, it takes Soul a minute to discover nothing is holding down and that he can breathe in the liquid night. Panic slowly ebbing away, he floats in place, getting used to the sensation of being suspended in darkness._

 _As his senses adjust, It takes him a minute to realize he's not alone._

 _He can see nothing, but a voice reverberates through the darkness and a ripple of recognition pulsates through him. Although he still can't make out what it's saying, the voice from this morning is not as faint as it had been and beckons to him._

 _Kicking forward, he follows the voice for what feels like eons._

 _Finally, he comes to the end of the darkness. Blinding light encircles the pool of darkness but while the borders between the two blur slightly as one edge overlaps the other like waves of the ocean, neither attempts to gain dominance over the other, existing side by side._

 _From deep within in the light comes the voice._

 _Soul hesitates. He has never known anything but night and going to a place that strips away every mask he has ever put up terrifies him in a way that his nightmares never have._

 _He's backing away when the voice calls out again; it so close that he can almost picture the person behind it- he has spent a thousand lifetimes with the owner of this voice._

 _Clarity peels back a part of his fear. He can stay in the darkness and be safe or he can enter the light and find the voice but he has to make a choice._

 _Taking a deep breath, a warmth spreads across his skin as he moves into the light, voice humming soothingly in his ears._

 _He is no longer afraid._


	8. Chapter 8

The chill from the marble floor seeps into Soul's skin, tugging him out of the fog blurring his mind and paralyzing his body.

He rolls onto his back and inhales deeply. The scent of magic is so thick in the air that he's stunned his compulsion to use his magic hasn't sent him into an immediate breakdown or that Oni hasn't come running to pick at his mind.

A headache throbs at Soul's temples. He presses the heels of his palms to his eyes and prods at his memory: the flash of light the old witch released is the last thing he remembers before losing consciousness, although he feels like he saw her again after that but he can't place when or how. There's something else important he's missing but the memory eludes him, hovering at the edge of his mind but not enough for him to remember.

Rubbing his head, Soul sits up carefully and looks around himself, finding the ballroom looking like a storm hit and the rest of the elves unconscious on the floor. His gaze travels to the other side of the room and his blood runs cold. Both Shaula and the old witch lie in pools of blood, eyes staring up glassily at nothing.

Panic pushes Soul to his feet. He's turning for the door when Oni's voice stops him. " _Now this is true power."_

He looks down to find the Kokketsu scythe at his feet. The night demon's face reflects in its blade, wearing a smug expression.

Fear roots Soul in place. "What have you done?"

Oni fixes him a delighted grin. " _This has nothing to do with me and everything to do with you."_

"Shut up!" He snatches up the scythe.

The moment Soul's fingers wrap around the scythe's handle, something lights from his hand to his soul; it is no longer like the scythe is separate from him but a part of his body he hadn't known was missing till now.

His voice is a whisper. "What did you do?"

The sound of elves stirring sends Soul stumbling back for the shadows. His heart leaps into his throat as he crashes into an elf, the scythe's blade coming dangerously close to the elf's ear. But the elf doesn't seem to notice, in fact, he doesn't appear to see the scythe at all as he shoves past Soul to the growing scene at the other end of the ballroom.

" _No one sees the scythe or me unless I will it,"_ hums Oni from the blade. " _Except you."_

Soul waits until he's in the hall outside of the ballroom to speak, bringing the scythe close to his face. "You had your fun. Now get out."

Oni shakes his head but his smile widens. " _I can't."_

"Yes, you can," he hisses, giving the scythe a hard shake.

The demon's grin turns ugly. " _Power like this doesn't come for free. When I say I can't, I mean I cannot leave."_

Soul's mouth goes dry. "You're stuck?"

"WHERE IS IT?"

Asura's voice roars from within in the ballroom. "WHO HAS MY SCYTHE?"

For an instant, Soul contemplates leaving behind the scythe and before holding it close to his chest and running. Leaving the scythe behind feels like the same thing as trying to part ways with his head and something in his gut tells him Arachne will soon put together who has the scythe, if she doesn't know already.

He makes the split-second decision to detour to the barracks on an impulse. Stuffing all that he can into a pack, Soul ties the scythe to his back with the pack's straps and is halfway out of the door when he hears the sound of someone jumping from their bunk.

"It's pretty late for a stroll, isn't it?" Harvar's voice comes from somewhere behind him.

There is not much Soul can make out of the elf other than the glint of his glasses in the near-total darkness. He wills calm into his words. "The ball ended early. Thought I'd take advantage of the rest of the night off."

He doesn't need to see Harvar's face to see he is not fooled at all.

A long pause ensues and then the other elf speaks. "I'd use the old trading exit. No one watches it much anymore."

"Right." Soul tries to search for something more than just thank you and fails. "Thanks."

"Yeah," Harvar yawns.

* * *

Mud tugs at the soles of Soul's feet as he emerges from the mountain and onto the steppes of Sathros, the grass whispering quietly in the night breeze as he crosses through them. He sets his path, keeping the image of Traicor's map, which was burned into his memory from many hours in military school, fixed in his mind.

" _You're making a mistake,"_ murmurs Oni from the scythe. " _You could take the power for yourself, if you wanted."_

"No thanks."

Oni's voice becomes testy. " _Don't be a fool."_

Soul snorts. "You're stuck in there, remember?" He grins as he allows the words to sink in. "There's not much you can do with all that power unless someone is wielding you. So it's in your interest not to bug me."

He shouldn't feel as peaceful as he does right now but panic has bled out any energy for caring much about anything, even the scythe on his back.

He continues to move forward and doesn't look back to the mountain once.

* * *

 _She snaps back into existence like a spark catching fire._

 _There is someone else in the darkness with her, another heart is beating in time with hers, their voice barely an echo in her ears, and after an eternity of being nothing, she dredges up her voice and calls out._

 _Her voice is rough and raspy, cracking every time she lifts it above a whisper, and she's not even sure if she is saying anything coherent but she calls to them with every bit of strength she can summon, praying for them to reach her- the fear of being alone again is too heavy to carry anymore._

 _Whoever is here with her doesn't answer back but she can feel in the shifts in the darkness that they are trying to find her too. For the first time since she was trapped here, she is not afraid and she struggles to move so she can look for them._

 _Darkness no longer surrounds her when she opens her eyes but a white-gold light; her arms and legs are sluggish and feel foreign as she tries to use them. She grits her teeth in impatience and forces herself to move, movements fumbling and stilted._

 _Out of the corner of her eye, something glimmers in the light and she turns to see a memory no bigger than a pebble drift into her sight for the first time in eons. She reaches out as it passes and her fingers brush against the memory's surface._

 _Her breath catches in her throat._

 _Maka. Her name is Maka._

 _Reality shatters in the space of a breath._

Pain shoots up her back as Maka hits the ground with a loud crack. She splutters and gasps for breath like she's been underwater for too long. Her legs shake as she pushes herself to her feet like they haven't supported her weight in ages.

The damp and musty smell of the air tells Maka that she's in a cave. She feels her foot connect with something hard as she takes a step forward and looks down to find herself standing in the middle of the remnants of a crystal. The pieces scattered around her glow faintly and pulse with magic, illuminating the dark and revealing a room slightly larger than her arm span.

An uneasy dread flutters down Maka's spine. She has no idea how she got trapped in a giant crystal; the only memory within her grasp is her name, she realizes. The magic spilling out from the shards of the broken crystal leaves a bitter and metallic taste on her tongue as she strains her mind and scours her thoughts but sees nothing, hears nothing, remembers _nothing_.

She shoves back her rising panic and forces herself to move, feeling her way across to the outline of the door across the room. A pessimistic voice from the back of her head tells her but she tries anyways, suspicions confirmed when the door refuses to budge an inch.

Pressing her ear against the door, she calls, "Hello?" She prays that the person that she sensed from before is somewhere nearby.

No one answers.

Maka tries again. "Is anyone there?"

Nothing.

She's alone.

Slowly, Maka sits on her knees and wraps her arms around her waist. Only to rest, she tells herself. Only to re-group and then-

The chain around her waist is loose enough that Maka does't notice until her fingers run across it. She traces the metal links wrapping around her body before rising and following the chain to the wall, the other end firmly embedded in the stone.

Her hands ball into fists around the chain. She wasn't trapped here.

She was imprisoned here.


	9. Chapter 9

Arachne looks up from the spider sitting on her hand and scrutinizes the quavering messenger elf in front of her from where she sits on her throne in the grand hall, tilting her head. "Would you repeat what you just said?"

The elf's throat bobs up and down and she swallows nervously. "We tracked the elf into one of the towns around the mountain but then-" She breaks off before speaking in a rush, "We lost him."

"I see." Arachne leans back and goes quiet. Then she speaks. "Go fetch the Demon Shadow."

The elf bows low. "Yes, mistress, right away."

Medusa's voice emanates from the shadows once the elf leaves. "I would have killed her for delivering me that news."

"Then you don't know the proper way to instill fear," Arachne replies coolly, lifting her head. She refuses to twist around to look at her sister. "Death is the end to all fear."

"Fear is not in death but in the ways to die." Medusa stops just on the edge of her vision, onyx hair braided into a rope looping her neck. "It's always interesting to see how far someone's threshold for pain will stretch before they snap and break."

Her sharp eyes don't miss the faint revulsion that crosses Arachne's face. "Not something your delicate sensibilities would ever allow but that's why I took over the army and you the throne, isn't it?"

Arachne does not let her taunts goad her into anger. "You do not mourn for our sister," she says. "Why are you here?"

"Shaula knew Mabaa was dangerous even though she was past her peak," Medusa says simply. "I do not mourn for fools." The clump of her boots echo against the walls and she comes fully into view. "There is one thing that does interest me, however."

Arachne waits.

Medusa speaks with a slow, easy surety. "It is obvious that the Kokketsu scythe is no longer in Asura's possession, despite your reassurances." She gives her a shrewd look. "Or are you hiding him away for nothing?"

Arachne doesn't answer.

"But you focus your efforts on finding a lowly deserter," she continues, pausing. "How do you know he has the scythe?"

Medusa laughs at her silence. "If you are thinking I aim to go after the scythe myself, you are wrong. Power does not interest me and while the scythe is fascinating, there are far more intriguing things taking up my attention at the moment."

She smiles. I am merely curious."

Arachne weighs her options carefully before she opens her mouth. "Even though the soul can't move on, a night elf is born every generation that would have wielded the scythe. They hold the same memories and wield the same powers as Asura," she says. "His powers begin to wane when they come of age while theirs get stronger so when I find them, I have the Night Guard dispose of them."

Medusa's expression is analytical. "And last night?"

"We had thought the elf's brother was the one and had him killed during a perimeter check," she replies. "But this morning, I ran across that elf and sensed his magic. He was going to be dealt with after the ball."

"And Mabaa?"

"She used the last of her life's energy to connect the elf's powers to the scythe." Arachne purses her lips. "And killed Shaula in the process."

Medusa nods. "I see." She squares her shoulders and rolls her head in a circle and her inky hair turns golden, eyes following suit. "There, less of a family resemblance, wouldn't you say?" She turns. "I'll be leaving with my army by tomorrow morning at latest."

Arachne blinks once. "To where?"

"While your fight against fate would be interesting to watch, staying in Sathros puts at risk everything I have brought to bear," she answers. "So my army and I are leaving."

"You will go nowhere without my blessing," Arachne says stiffly.

"No, dear sister, you misunderstand me." Medusa turns back to face her. "I promised I wouldn't go after the scythe but if this information were to go public," she pauses and her smile grows wide, "That, I imagine, would enough to spark a revolution, wouldn't it?"

"Yes, I thought so," she says after a moment of silence. "I will be making preparations now."

"Although you are right in one thing," Medusa says, stopping in the doorway. "There _are_ different ways to instill fear in others."

* * *

The puppeteer sitting at the back of Tsubaki's mind breathes with Arachne's cold fury and she does not wait for it to tug on her limbs like strings to rise up from the table in the barracks' mess hall.

When she reaches Arachne's apartments, the doors open automatically and she enters. Arachne is sitting on a reclined couch, glass of wine in her hand.

"You've heard the news." Her voice is barely above a whisper.

Tsubaki nods.

"He was one of your pupils, wasn't he?"

"One of many," she answers. "He never caught my eye."

She isn't sure why she lies.

Arachne gives her a long look and the puppeteer in her mind stills her tongue. "I want you to retrieve the Kokketsu scythe. And I want you to bring the elf back, dead or alive."

She nods again.

"Go." Arachne dismisses her with a wave of her hand. "And don't come back until you have them both."

Bowing low, Tsubaki backs out of the room.

As she straightens and walks down the corridor, something flickers in her mind for an instant, fuzzy memories and the nagging feeling that she used to be someone different.

Then Arachne's voice echoes from within the puppeteer, praising her for her duty, and Tsubaki forgets what she was thinking about.


	10. Chapter 10

Soul peers through the foliage surrounding the tiny village in front of him. The cursed darkness isn't as thick here, only a dim gloom spreading over the houses and tiny storefronts. His stomach growls loudly, demanding food. It's been two days of traveling between villages since he last ate a real meal and the most he's had to drink has been the condensation he's collected from plants.

Beyond the village looms the shadowy outline of the forest bordering Sathros and Traicor. It'll take him at least a week to travel through the forest, if he's lucky and luck has never been something he's had in spades.

Already in the week since he escaped from the mountain, he's run into obstacle after obstacle. A storm had hit the day after he left and kept up unrelentingly for the entire time he spent traveling to the nearest town, leaving him in clothes so soaked that he had to peel them off by the time he made it to the nearest town and found an inn that he could afford.

When he had woken up, it was to find that the town crawling with soldiers from Arachne's guard. He'd heard the sharp clopping of hooves and the shouts of the soldiers in the square below as they marched into the inn and every neighboring building. Soul had barely made it out with the clothes on his back, his pack and the Kokketsu scythe.

Since then he had kept away from the main towns and limited to only entering the small villages after he had made sure weren't overrun with soldiers.

Soul rolls the handle of the scythe back and forth over his palm as he ponders the best way to steal food from one of the stands he spies in the tiny square. That the scythe had been his salvation was as much a surprise to him as it would have been to anyone else.

Being bound with Oni, he expected the scythe to be as much of a burden on his mind as the demon, avoiding even looking at it. But he gave in the third day, pulling the scythe from behind him.

He'd been filled with the same surety and peace he'd felt when he had first held the scythe. Unlike Oni, who pulled on his magic like a noose around his neck, the scythe was an open conduit, focusing and amplifying his magic and allowing it to come and go as it pleased.

In the freedom the scythe had given him, Soul dared to use his magic for the first time since he scarred Wes. It had been small: a mist of shadow that was hardly darker than the night in Sathros but the rush of release after all the years he had spent suppressing his magic had given him a feeling of lightness he hadn't felt in years.

While he didn't allow himself to use his magic more than that, the mist was enough for him to sneak to the food stands of the villages he came across and steal a piece of fruit or two as well as keep him hidden when he settled into the grasses of the plains to sleep.

Soul watches the village for another minute before casting the mist about him; his head swivels left and right as he picks his way to the square, careful not to step in any place that will leave footprints, and snags an apple and a hunk of bread with a finesse he's acquired over the past few days.

Settling into a narrow alleyway between a house and a store, Soul sits and begins to scarf down his food with a ravenous appetite. He leans back against the wall once his hunger is sated and feels a contented tiredness sweep through him as he observes elves walking by, catching snippets of their conversation here and there. Despite the perennial darkness hanging over their heads, they seem adjusted, even happy living eternal night.

He wonders if he could be happy here. Drowsiness overtakes him before he can answer that thought and Soul dozes, in between dreaming and listening to the quiet pulse of life around him.

The thud of hooves and blare of military trumpets rouses him and he blinks back into consciousness, disoriented and confused.

"We are looking for a fugitive elf that may have come through here," booms a familiar voice.

Tsubaki's voice.

Adrenaline clears Soul's head of any grogginess and he fights the impulse to leap up and run. No one can see him, he reminds himself, taking deep and measured breaths.

All he has to do is wait it out.

Soul rises to his feet slowly and pulls his scythe from its spot on the pack, tensed to run.

The soldiers pass by one by one and every time, he holds his breath and waits to be recognized but no one sees him-one soldier even looks straight through him but says nothing and continues to walk past.

After the steady stream of soldiers peter out to a trickle and then nothing for several minutes, he peeks out tentatively. Seeing no one, Soul comes out and hurries down the path and exits the village, the forest just ahead of him.

It's a mistake.

On a horse, Tsubaki emerges from the forest, in conversation with a soldier riding next to her.

Soul freezes in place. If he moves, she'll hear him, he knows it. Sweat drips down the back of his neck as he watches her ride right past, heart slamming in his chest.

It is only for an instant but she locks eyes with Soul and he knows.

She can see him.

Soul swings out the scythe in a wide arc and from the trees a horde of ravens answer his call, flying down upon the soldiers and he sprints into the forest, stumbling over roots and dodging branches.

From behind him, he hears Tsubaki yell, "He's using a glamour!"

He throws down the mist in case she's tracking him that way and immediately there is the whistle of an arrow whizzing by and the harsh _thunk_ as it buries itself into a tree right in front of him. Soul veers to the right, nothing more than moving limbs, gut instinct and the thought _run, run, RUN._

Stars explode in his vision as his nose connects with a branch and he falls backward, scythe flying out of his hand.

The shouts of soldiers ring in his ears, he's down for a breath and then he's scrambling to his feet, moving frantically even as the world is spinning wildly; he stumbles over the scythe rather than finds it and he snatches it up, running blindly- even though his lungs are burning and his head is pounding, he refuses to even pause because if he pauses he will stop and if he stops he will be caught and being caught means he's dead.

And dying just when he's started to live seems like too cruel an ending, even for him.

He leaps over a fallen log and stretches his legs to land on the ground, except his feet don't meet the ground, they meet nothing.

Somehow he bites back a yell and hugs the scythe close to him as he tumbles through the air, pain needling throughout his body when he hits the ground.

Soul only registers the fact that he is alive and he can move before using the scythe to get to his feet. He's at the bottom of a ravine and he spins around in a circle, getting a bearing on his surroundings.

A cave yawns wide in one side of the ravine. Through his panic, Soul can feel something calling him from it and he considers for a beat. It could be trapping himself in a place with no escape but hiding in the cave could also save him, if Tsubaki and her soldiers don't come this way.

Oni's voice is tinny from within the scythe. " _When are we going to have some fun?"_

"Shut up!"

Soul runs into the cave and prays that it's enough.

* * *

An ache radiates down the sides of Maka's palms and she feels the warm wetness of blood oozing from the places her skin split open from hitting the door too hard.

She does not think about her toes.

The room feels smaller than usual as she paces back and forth, a jittery energy running down her legs. Something has been pulling at her all day long, she's not sure if it's a side effect from being alone in the dark for so long but the nagging desire to go seek it out makes it impossible to stay in one place for long.

Her stomach gurgles loudly as she continues to pace the length of the room. There is no way of marking the time in here but her stomach has not stopped rumbling since the light from the crystal shards winked out for good three sleeps ago and when she licks her lips, it's not enough to trick her mind into easing up on the parched feeling lodged in the back of her throat.

But she refuses to give up. Maka sets her jaw-she's had a long time to think in the time she broke out of the crystal and she's spent it mostly chipping away at the grey block lying between her and her memories. What she has been able to remember is very little but she holds onto it fiercely: she's a light elf, she was born in Sathros and the place she was most content are the meadows of wildflowers lying in the shadows of craggy mountain ranges.

What she holds onto the most is the image of the elf who caged her here.

The memory is blurred, no matter how much Maka pushes her mind, although different things about the elf pop out at her every time she remembers: the rough fabric of the scarves covering the elf from head-to-toe as he held fast to her, the gleam of the onyx scythe the elf carried, her desperation to reach something just beyond her.

She had failed.

Maka is not sure how but she knows many others had been counting on her and she had let them down in the worst way. Angry tears sting at the corners of her eyes. And here she was, stripped of her memory, chained to a wall and completely useless.

The energy pulling at her feet rises to a peak as she pounds on the door again, frustration breaking the last of her composure.

She doesn't stop until her hands feel like they're about to fall off. Her chest heaves as she steps back and gives her head a shake. Maka wipes her eyes, shoving back the feeling of despair pooling in her gut. She plays around with the idea of using the shards again. Maybe this time, she'd take a run at the hin-

"Hello?" A soft knock sounds tentatively at the door and the voice Maka heard while she was stuck in the crystal calls out again. "Is someone in there?"

There's a beat of silence as the connection between them solidifies like an invisible cord and she feels the rhythm of his soul fill the pauses in hers.

She scrambles to find her voice. "Yes, I've been trapped here for a long time." They move in time, drawing close to the door; she feels the heat of his body like it were her own. "My name is Maka," she adds.

"I'm Soul." There's a creak as he tries the door. "How did you get locked in there?"

Maka laughs once without humor. "I don't remember." She pauses. "I don't remember much of anything."

The sounds of Soul feeling the door for a weak spot cease. "Well," he says after a moment, "You remembered your name. That's a good place to start."

She smiles for the first time since she woke up. "You have a point."

"As I sometimes do." Warm amusement diffuses from his side of their connection. "Do you remember anything else?"

"I was born in Sathros."

He resumes trying to find a way to open the door. "Good."

"Is that where we are now?" she asks.

Soul doesn't answer right away. "Yes."

"Is that a bad thing?"

"Maybe not for you," he replies. "For me, yes." There's noise as Soul steps back and he changes the subject. "I think I'm going to have to break this down."

She blinks. "If you were able to open the door that way, why didn't you do it in the first place?"

"Creating a racket was something I was trying to avoid but I think they're too far away to hear now." There's a low _thwip_ of metal slicing through air. "Mind standing back and covering your ears?"

Maka keeps herself from voicing her questions for now, retreating to behind the base of the crystal and putting her hands over her ears. "Okay," she calls.

Even with her ears covered, the muffled screech of metal against metal against grinds against her eardrums. It continues for a long minute and then it ceases, replaced by a high-pitched scraping sound.

She jumps to her feet to help Soul in moving the door away. Sweat beads at the crown of Maka's temples as they shift aside the door, muscles shaking with the exertion, and again she wonders how long she was stuck in the crystal.

"All right," Soul grunts. "I think you can fit through there now."

Maka starts to step forward before she remembers the chain around her waist. "Um, I can't move," she says, "I'm chained to the wall."

Soul's voice goes flat. "Chained?"

The door groans as he squeezes through the opening and Maka catches sight of the opaque shadow that is Soul.

"Maka?"

"Right here," she says quickly.

The shadow moves toward the sound of her voice and he runs straight into Maka, grabbing her shoulder to keep her from falling over. Embarrassment radiates from Soul to her. "Sorry!"

"It's okay," she reassures him. She takes his hand in hers and guides him to the chain tethering her to the wall. "The chain goes around my waist but I don't think you'll be able to get that part off."

Soul is quiet as he hefts the chain in his hand. "Is it okay if I see if I can?"

"Go ahead." Maka ignores the uptick in her heartbeat.

His fingers barely brush against her as he feels the chain around her waist. "I think I can do it," Soul finally says. "But you have to be still."

"I'll see if I can manage that."

He laughs nervously. "It's more for me than anything else."

She tries to reassure him. "If you don't want to, you don't have to do it. I really don't mind hav-"

"I can do it," Soul says determinedly, pulling his hand away and stepping back.

Maka goes silent and waits.

There is no sound of metal against metal but instead the darkness seems to weigh more heavily on her and then the chain around her body loosens and falls to the ground.

Feeling around her waist, Maka squints up at the point where Soul's face would be in wonder. "How did you do that?"

He wavers in their connection before answering. "Magic."

"That's some pretty powerful magic," she comments.

"That would be one way of describing it." Soul shifts from one foot to the other. "Ready to go?"

Maka laughs. "More than you can know."

He holds the door while she wriggles her way through the opening and grabs it from the other side so he can get through safely; his body brushes against hers as Soul squeezes by, the connection between them pulses hot for a second and then he's past.

He puts space between them and coughs. "Shall we get going?"

She nods-the dark in the cave tunnel is lighter than the darkness of her cell so she can see more of Soul now. All she can really make out is the flash of silver-white hair and a dim outline of his face but it crystallizes the fact that he's real and not a hallucination.

The soft drip of water coming from elsewhere in the cave breaks up the silence as they walk; Maka steals glances at Soul from time to time, not that she can see much else than his hair. Her fingers fidget at her side before she opens her mouth. "I have some questions."

The smile is apparent in his voice. "I know," he says. It's the first either of them has acknowledged the link between them.

She files that away to ponder later since she can feel that his bewilderment over their connection is exactly like hers.

"Why are people after you?"

"It's nothing too bad," Soul says, pausing. "It just comes down to disagreements over very fundamental things, like whether my heart should keep beating or not."

"Oh." His discomfort with the conversation bleeds through to her and she doesn't push it. "So long as you're not a violent criminal, you don't have to tell me."

He laughs and the tension eases. "That would make things a bit awkward."

Grinning, she moves onto her next question. "So if you're from Sathros, does that mean you're a light elf too?"

The force of his shock stops Maka in her tracks and Soul spins around. "You're a light elf?"

Her eyes widen in alarm. "Yes, aren't there light elves in Sathros?" Memories bubble up at the corners of her mind. "My family are light elves."

"Maka-" Soul breaks off and goes silent.

"Don't lie to me."

"I'm not, it's just that-" She feels him struggle to find the words for whatever he's trying to say. Soul starts again, "There haven't been any light elves seen alive in Sathros for nearly one hundred years."

"What?" Fingers of icy dread laces around her heart and Maka shakes her head. "No, no, that's wrong." Panic leaks in her words and her voice becomes high-pitched. "How could I be alive then?"

"I don't know," Soul says. "But I'll help you, I promise."

He hesitates and then he reaches for her hand. "You can't be the only light elf who is alive." He keeps his hold loose. "We're going to figure this out."

Maka tightens their grip and swallows hard. "Okay."

After that, she becomes lost in her thoughts and Soul lets her think in peace, wordlessly leading her through the dark. Her worries are temporarily shoved aside when she spots the mouth of the cave yawning open, dusk already falling beyond.

"Hold on." Soul stops and there's the sound of him pulling out something metallic-Maka can't see what he brought out but she assumes it's a weapon of some sort.

She tugs on his hand impatiently, spying trees and plants in the distance. "Come on!"

Soul lets out a laugh and lets her pull them out of the darkness; she drops his hand and twists around in a circle, tilting back her head and breathing in the earthy smell of the forest. She stays like that for a moment, eyes closed, and then she opens them and turns to Soul, finally gets a good look at Soul's face.

Maka takes in his translucent skin, the droopy slant of his eyes and the deep crimson of his irises and she smiles at him and the anxious look he wears disappears.

He grins back, revealing a mouth full of jagged teeth.

Then she spies the ebony scythe in his hands and her heart shatters.


	11. Chapter 11

Soul gets one look at Maka-blonde hair framing green eyes flecked with gold, freckles sprinkled over her tanned skin-before he is thrown back by a blast of light, scythe ripped from his grasp. He lands hard on the ground but he springs to his feet immediately; he expects to see Tsubaki and her soldiers but he only sees Maka, points the Kokketsu scythe at him.

Her voice shakes with rage. "Did you think that I wouldn't remember the elf that imprisoned me in that hellhole?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Don't act like you don't know," she shouts, scythe trembling in her hands. "The person that trapped me in there had this scythe." Betrayal seeps through their connection. "You're the one that locked me away!"

"I didn't," Soul insists. He tries reaching out through their link but she refuses to acknowledge him. "I've only had the scythe with me for a week."

"Stop lying," she says through gritted teeth.

He stops pushing at their connection and tries a different tack. "If I was the one who locked you away, then why would I free you?"

Doubt flits on her face for an instant. "You wanted to kill me." She gestures at him with the scythe blade. "You said so when you caught me the first time."

"Why would I wait till now?" he points out. "I could have done that the moment I broke down your door."

She is stymied again but she doesn't lower her guard. "You're afraid," Maka answers. "As much as you try to hide it, you're afraid of everything. Of light, of yourself, of what's in your mind. I felt it." She unravels his masks with deadly precision, exposing things he's never even fully admitted to himself. "Or do you deny that too?"

Soul fixes his eyes on a point on the ground. "I...don't."

"But I'm not who you think I am," he adds quickly. "Asura and Arachne are the-"

"Asura?" The scythe slackens as Maka's expression turns distant and blank.

Soul waits for minutes and then Maka opens her mouth.

"He brought down the night," she whispers, still somewhere far away. "He killed Vajra and the witches took over." Her words become frantic. "He chased my people out of Sathros and he tracked me down and he sealed me away in the darkness and I failed everyone, I failed-"

"Maka?" He takes a step towards her.

She jerks away, raising the scythe. "Don't come near me."

He draws back. "Why did you say you failed?"

"Because I-" Her voice breaks and her face works furiously for several moments. When she speaks, her voice is steady. "I wield the Grigori scythe."

They look at the Kokketsu scythe and then at each other at the same time.

A horn sounds from far off.

Maka starts. "Who is that?"

"Asura's soldiers," he answers. "And they're not going to be happy to see either of us so we need to get moving now."

She throws him a dark look. "Who says I'm going with you?"

"I said I'd help you," he says, tilting his head to hear better. The soldiers are still far away enough that they can get away if they move fast. "Do you know where you're going?"

The words roll off her tongue reluctantly. "We had a resistance group in Traicor."

"Where?"

"I don't know the name." She wavers. "It was near a desert mountain range with four peaks. They looked like a crown."

He recognizes the description. "Those are the Lorios mountains. They're not far from the border," he says. "I can get you to them."

Maka's eyes widen momentarily before narrowing. "And why should I trust you?"

"I can't convince you to trust me unless you want to," he answers. "But know that even without the scythe, I could go."

Soul meets her eyes. "I'm not leaving."

Maka stares at him and Soul stares back, their link opening for the first time since they left the cave.

"Fine," she finally says. She tightens her grip on the scythe and the link shuts. "But I'm keeping this until we get to Traicor and you get me to the resistance."

* * *

Soul listens to the forest for a minute before relaxing. "This is far enough." He shrugs off his pack and props it against a tree. "We'll be safe sleeping here."

Maka eyes him warily from the other side of the small clearing. "How can you be sure?"

"Night elves were created to get around by other ways than sight," he says, rummaging around in the pack. "Our hearing is the best sense we have." He pulls out a blanket and shakes it out, extending it to her.

She sits in front of a fallen log and places the Kokketsu scythe behind her, pulling her legs to her chest.

The movement draws Soul attention to her feet and bile rises in his mouth as he catches sight of the mangled mess of her toes. "What happened to your feet?"

An abashed look crosses Maka's face. "I had to try to escape, I wasn't just going to sit there and do nothing," she says defensively, her chagrin permeating through the block in their connection.

He resists the urge to shake his head. "I've got some bandages and salves."

She waves him away. "I can heal myself."

Soul sits back and watches for several minutes as Maka silently struggles to summon her magic.

When she gives up, she throws him a glare like she holds him personally responsible. "I was stuck in that crystal for a long time."

He raises his hands in surrender. "I didn't say anything."

"But you were thinking it."

"If you opened up our link, you'd know that's untrue."

She harrumphs but makes no reply.

"Can I bandage your feet now?" Soul asks.

"They'll heal on their own."

He can't fight the urge to roll his eyes. "If those get infected, then your only problem won't be Asura."

Maka doesn't voice her surrender but she rises to sit on the log and cracks open the tiniest bit in their bond, which is as much as an invitation he's going to get.

Soul notices the rips in the dirtied white tunic she's wearing. "We'll have to get you new clothes when we get to Traicor."

She snorts. "You too." She's silent while Soul cleans her cuts but speaks when he begins to bandage her feet. "Is Asura still the wielder of the Kokketsu scythe?"

"It's definitely not me."

He hears the confused frown in her words. "Then how can you use the scythe?"

He's already been stripped bare of his facade and he's tired of keeping Oni a secret. "There was a night demon who got bound to me at birth," he answers, tying the last knot on her bandage in place. "He's possessing the scythe."

Maka is looking at him when he glances up at her. "But don't demons normally try to possess people?"

"Yes, they do." She doesn't protest when he takes her hand and begins applying salves to the cuts there.

"Oh." There's silence as she thinks and Soul has moved onto her other hand when she talks again. "And you think that would explain this." Maka gestures to the space between them.

"I don't know," he admits, finishing wrapping her hand. "Oni's magic has never worked that way before."

Her face is closer when he looks up this time and he can count each freckle on her cheeks if he wanted to. Maka doesn't pull back but watches him with the same intensity, her breath tickling his skin; her lips part and Soul wonders how they would feel on his.

She tugs her hand out of his grasp and she stands, plucking the Kokketsu scythe off of the ground. "Whatever the reason, it was your kind who did this to my people and I will not forget that."

"So it's best if we just ignore it." Maka walks off into the forest.

Soul watches as she goes and heads back to his spot, lying on the ground. He wonders if the pang twisting in his chest is just because of himself.


	12. Chapter 12

Mostly she dreams in grey or black and white but sometimes Tsubaki dreams in color.

When she dreams in color, what she dreams is different too, Arachne's presence can't get at her then and hazy images dripping with memory saturate her mind like the blonde-haired elf that has plagued her dreams for the past week.

She had been important to her, the dreams tell her.

Tsubaki straightens and dismisses the thought as her horse emerges from the forest and enters Traicor. When she discovered the night elf had escaped in the forest, she refused to go back with her squadron back to Sathros and went off to search for the night elf on her own.

Dropping down from the saddle, she examines the faint tracks nearly hidden by Traicor's sweeping winds. While she had kept an eye on Soul, she'd never thought him exceptional but now she had to admit the elf learned well from her.

But not well enough.

Pulling herself back up on the saddle, she spurs her horse forward, following the two pairs' of footsteps with an expert eye.

There was nothing wrong with what she was doing, whispers Arachne's voice from the puppeteer-her visits to Tsubaki's mind have increased since she started dreaming in color more often.

Sometimes, Tsubaki dreams in color and she prefers that she didn't.

* * *

Against the backdrop of Lorios mountain range, the cliffside town of Loew looks like a mirage from a distance but the loud buzz of conversation and the dwarves jostling past Maka reassures her that the town is very real. It makes juggling the Kokketsu scythe, which she now knew could blink in and out of sight thanks to Oni, from one hand to the other difficult.

Soul glances back at her as she dodges colliding into a large dwarven family. "I could always tie it to the pack, you know."

"Funny," she huffs as she catches up to him, wiping the sweat from her forehead and feeling her eyes burn in the harsh desert sunlight. It almost made her miss the gloom of Sathros. "Tell me," she says, pointing at her beige tunic, "Are we going to find a way to get a free room too?"

"I did leave money on the doorstep so the clothes weren't free," Soul answers. He wears a similar tunic to hers although his pants are maroon and too short and hers are pale yellow. "I was fair."

"If you say so."

He grins at her. "I do."

She returns his grin for a second before she stiffens. "Hurry up." She stalks past him, shoulders rigid. "I'm tired."

There are several things Maka hates at the moment: she hates she can feel his hurt confusion through their link, although she pretends she can't. She hates, despite what she told Soul in the forest, it _is_ getting easier and easier to forget who he is.

The innkeeper at the front desk gives them a wide smile as Maka and Soul enter the inn. "Congratulations."

"For what?" Soul asks as he signs the register.

"That's newlywed garb, isn't it?" says the innkeeper. "Though you don't look very dwarven but I suppose that's what happens when you live in border towns." She continues, "When did you two get married?"

Soul's face is frozen in an expression one wears when death is near.

Maka acts on instinct, grabbing his hand and squeezing hard. "Oh, just a week ago." She smiles up at Soul and prods him through their bond. "Isn't that right, sweetie?"

He blinks back to life, nodding. "Absolutely right, dearheart."

The innkeeper is clutching her chest. "That brings me back to my newlywed days." She pulls a bronze key from her key ring. "Here, take the honeymoon room."

"That's not really necessary," Soul interjects.

"I'm sure it will be," trills the innkeeper.

"Don't be rude, sweetie." Maka smiles brightly and nudges Soul. "Let's go check out the room."

He allows her to lead him away from the desk and Maka keeps her smile in place until they round the corner. " _Dearheart."_

"You shouldn't have called me sweetie." He drops her hand.

The one bed in the room leers at her as they enter the room; Soul drops his pack on the floor and stretches. "I thought I saw some baths downstairs, do you want to go first?"

She shakes her head. "There's a bowl and a washcloth here. I'll be fine."

"You know I'm not going to take the scythe back till you give it to me." His tone stays nonchalant but she can tell he's hurt by her words.

She doesn't answer and after a moment, he leaves.

Lying the scythe on the bed, Maka sits and opens and closes the hand Soul had held.

Her anger had been easy to cling onto for the first few days but it was harder to hate and be angry with someone she knew the ins and outs of their soul and by the time they had exited the forest more than two weeks ago, she was sorely regretting the wall she had put up in their connection.

Maka lies back on the bed and stares at the ceiling. And now she is far too afraid to hear what Soul would say, if she tried to re-connect with him. Sighing, she closes her eyes and tries to clear her mind of everything.

She's not sure when she went from dozing to sleeping but the next thing she's aware of is the feeling of a blanket being tugged over her.

She wakes with a start and Soul shrinks back from the bed. "Sorry," he says hastily, scratching the back of his neck. His face is red. "You were shivering."

"It's fine," she replies just as quickly, swallowing her nerves. She sits up and rubs the sleep from her eyes. "How long was I asleep?'

"It's night now," Soul informs her. He pauses. "Well, actual night."

"Is day everything that you thought it'd be?" she asks, peering up at him with curiosity.

"It's mildly terrifying," he says with a humorless laugh. His eyes move to her face. "But I think there's a lot more color and beauty to everything now."

Maka knows it's an invitation to re-open their link, delights in the fact, screams at herself to speak or move or do something to show that she accepts but she does none of that.

She does nothing.

Soul's expression shows neither disappointment or resentment. "It's midnight and that actually means something here." He turns and stretches out his arms, yawning loudly. "I'm going to sleep. I'll be on the floor if you need me."

"Wait." Maka calls. She stops herself from rising from the bed. "You don't have to sleep on the floor."

"I don't mind." He settles on the floor and his voice comes from the foot of the bed. "Night."

Maka bites back the words on her tongue and lies back down. "Good night."

She hates many things at the moment but the thing Maka hates most is that she wants to be close to him.

* * *

Light pulls Maka from her sleep and she buries her face in the warm body in protest, arms inching over to loop around their waist. Whoever she's holding covers her hand with theirs, mumbling something that her sleep-addled mind can't make out.

She rests somewhere between waking and falling back asleep until the sunlight streaming in the room is too much to ignore. Stretching out the stiffness in her neck, she opens her eyes.

The sight of Soul's back and her arms wrapped tightly around him greets her.

She shoots up with an involuntary yelp and Soul jars awake, shooting up. "What happened?" His voice is groggy, eyes panicked and unfocused until he sees Maka. "How did you get here?"

"I didn't know I sleep walk," she says in a rush. She finds herself praying simultaneously that he does and doesn't remember the feeling of her body against his. "I'm sorry."

"Sleep walk?"

"Like I said, I didn't know." If she ducks her head or moves at all, he'll know something else happened so she stares defiantly at him.

"I'm not mad." Soul's eyes catch the growing sunlight in a way that makes them glow like rubies. He gives her a sly look. "Did you sleep well, dearheart?"

Maka ignores the jolt her heart gives and forces herself to rise. "I'm going to take a bath." She pointedly grabs the Kokketsu scythe but all she can make out through their link is Soul's amusement. "See you downstairs, _sweetie_."

* * *

When Maka steps out of the baths, she feels like she's been reborn-the layers of dirt and grime that came off her had left the water an embarrassing shade of muddy grey but she feels as light as a feather.

She fetches the Kokketsu scythe from where she hid it and eyes the blade, which only shows her frowning reflection staring back at her. Soul had said that he had only ever been able to see the demon he called Oni but she'd thought from their bond, she might have been able to see Oni too.

Maka sweeps her hair to one side as she looks for Soul and she finds him tucked away in a corner of the tavern next to the inn studying a paper. She taps the half-eaten plate of food in front of him, settling into the seat next to him. "Thanks for waiting."

The satisfaction she gets from Soul's double take as he looks up at her is probably more than the situation calls for but Maka delights in it all the same.

He recovers and points to another plate on the table. "I got you a plate too."

She glances at the plate and wrinkles her nose. "Fish?"

"One of the finer things in life."

"You mean smelliest," she corrects. "How can you even bring it near your mouth with that stench?"

"That's part of the appeal," he claims.

"I still don't see it."

"You wouldn't say that if you tried my brother's salmon," Soul says, putting down the paper in his hand. "Wes used to make the be-"

He stops, expression closing off.

Maka deliberates between speaking and staying quiet for a moment and chooses the former. "You have a brother?"

"Had." Mountains of melancholy hide behind the word. "He was killed in a skirmish ten years ago."

"I'm sorry." The sentence feels hollow but she has nothing else to say.

"Thanks, I've had enough time to make peace with it though." He shifts and she knows he doesn't want to think about it anymore.

"What's this?" Maka nods to the paper he had been looking at.

Soul flips it over, revealing a close-up map of the area surrounding the Lorios mountains range. He points to spots that he's marked. "I was thinking of places that your resistance group would be likely to be." His finger touches a spot that's not too far from where they are now. "This one seems most likely since it's by a river and has fair weather most of the time."

Maka studies where he points, heartbeat suddenly rapidfire. "Do you really think they'll be there after all this time?" She raises her head, mouth dry. "What if Asura got to them?"

He doesn't immediately move to blindly reassure her. Instead, Soul answers, "Then we'll face it together."

Although his reply changes nothing, knowing she's not alone removes a heaviness from Maka's heart she didn't know existed.

She turns suddenly. "Soul?"

His gaze rests on her like a weight. "Yes?"

"I, uh-" She swallows hard. "I-"

Words failing, Maka takes Soul's hand and releases the block between their connection in the same moment, hiding nothing.

Soul doesn't react at all.

Panic sets in and she's fumbling for an excuse to leave when she feels a hand cup her chin.

She's burning but his thumb traces cool circles on her cheek and she relaxes. He doesn't share everything like she does but what he does is enough for her.

Maka leans into Soul's touch, feeling more than whole.


	13. Chapter 13

Maka dances in place. "Look, I got it!"

Soul catches a flash of bright light in her hands before it disappears. "What was that supposed to be?"

"An energy ball," she replies excitedly. Light pulses bright in her hand before flickering out again. "At least that's what they'll be once I get how to charge them properly."

"You sure had a handle on it when you attacked me," he observes.

"That didn't count," she says. "Light elves' powers are ruled by their emotions."

"It counted to me."

"I already said I was sorry for that." She slips her hand in his. "What else do you want?"

Her cheeks glow pink as soon as the words leave her mouth and Soul enjoys her flusteredness for a moment before answering. "What I want," he says, pulling the map from his pack, "is to find this group already."

"We've only been looking in this spot for two days," Maka reasons. "And this is a big area. It's worth at least one more day of searching."

He concedes the point, eyeing the river beside them that seems to be leading them nowhere fast. "I just don't want you waiting more than you need."

"I've been waiting one hundred years," she says. "I can be patient."

Soul doesn't hold back his laugh.

"I said 'can' not that I am," Maka says sourly. She veers in front of him and planting herself in his path when Soul continues to laugh.

"Laugh in my face," she dares.

He grins down teasingly at her. "Or what?"

Maka's gaze travels from Soul's eyes to his mouth and her lips part. For a moment, her breath tickles against the corner of his lips.

Then she pulls back and grabs his hand. "There's something I want to show you."

He protests even as he allows her to lead him away from from the riverbank. "Shouldn't we try to travel ahead a bit more?"

"The sun's going to be going down soon enough anyways," she calls. Their footsteps crash through the meadows surrounding the river. "And I need the light to do this."

Her nervousness from nearly kissing him bleeds through to him and Soul lets her hide it, pretending not to notice it.

They hadn't moved from doing much else since she re-opened their link and he wasn't going to push Maka into doing anything she didn't want to do. It'd been enough to have a place to sit in each other's minds and share thoughts and feelings as they traveled Traicor.

Although he was guilty over the fact that she'd showed him every part of her mind when they reconnected and he had hidden away everything he was afraid would scare her away.

Which had been most of his mind.

But Maka hadn't pushed him either and he was grateful for it.

Soon, he promises himself.

"Are you okay?"

Soul glances at Maka before realizing he's squeezing her fingers a little too tight and loosens hiss grip. "Sorry."

"It's fine." She stops. "All right, I think this is the place."

Unlike the other meadows, this one is patched with browning grass and half-withered flowers. He frowns. "Are you sure?"

"Yes, yes." She waves at him. "Now cover your eyes. I want you to be surprised."

"That inherently makes me feel like a child."

She rolls her eyes. "Then turn around."

"That's worse."

Her face twists into a frown and he turns.

"No peeking," she calls as she darts away.

"I got it." Soul turns his face back towards the sky, which is glowing scarlet and gold as the sun begins to dip below the horizon.

The sight of the sunset was something he was never going to get used to-he didn't think he'd ever get used to anything involving the sun. When he had first been greeted by the harsh white light of the noonday soon as he and Maka had exited the forest, he'd almost run back to Sathros.

Soul feels her giddiness as she flits throughout the meadow, catching flashes of light out of the corner of his eye.

Maka's light has been the only light that he's never feared once.

"Okay," she says after minutes of silence and light. "You can turn around."

The meadow has come alive. Flowers bloom and flourish everywhere, pieces of the sky above brought down to earth and the grass a verdant green.

But it pales in comparison to Maka. Her light drapes around her like a gown, bending with her movements as she approaches him and holds out a hand.

He takes it, a moth to her flame.

"I'm a healer," she says, breaking the silence. "Which includes plants, obviously." Pink dusts her face but she continues looking up at him. "Before I got sealed away, this was one of my favorite things to do."

Her anticipation as Soul's eyes move across the meadow and back to her beats like a second heart.

"It's beautiful," he says. "Like you."

Maka's face reddens but she's beaming. "I thought we could watch the sunset from here."

Soul speaks before he could lose his nerve. "Could I show you something first?"

She nods. "Of course."

He takes a deep breath and pulls her into his mind. Maka's eyes go unfocused as he lifts the darkness he's kept over his mind and lets her light illuminate everything.

Soul waits while she takes everything in, not brave enough to peek into their link.

She's completely still.

He fights the urge screaming at him to run away and waits.

And waits.

Finally, Maka lets out a breath and peers up at Soul, opening her mouth.

Then she closes it and steps back.

Shoving away the voice telling him this would happen, he braces himself.

Maka pushes herself up on her toes and kisses him, wrapping her arms around his neck. Her lips are not soft from weeks in the desert but they're warm and fierce. She embraces everything he is and everything he's, they tell him as she presses against him.

Soul responds in kind, an arm looping around her waist. He lets Maka guide them to the ground, grasses soft as she lies on top of him and moves her lips from his mouth to his jawbone.

Her breaths are heavy against Soul's neck as she plants open-mouthed kisses to his collarbone while his hands move down the sides of her ribcage to her hips and back up again.

When her lips go back to his mouth, her kisses become more urgent and Soul cups the back of her neck, matching her intensity.

Maka rocks her hips against him once before stopping abruptly and ducks her head.

Soul pulls back his head. "Enough?" he asks.

She raises her eyes, face sheepish. "I'm sorry."

"Nothing to apologize for." He waits until she relaxes on top of him to hug an arm around her.

She laces her fingers with his and they watch the last of the sunset together.

* * *

The moonlight shining down strikes Tsubaki as one of the oddest things she's ever seen but also as one of the most familiar somehow and that confuses her greatly.

Her gaze tracks Soul and his companion as they settle by the riverbank for the night and she settles into her spot, far away enough that the night elf wouldn't be able to sense her. It had taken her a few days to find them once the night elf's trail went cold in Loew and she only had found them now.

There's also something familiar about the stranger, she muses. In things like lilt of her voice she'd caught snatches of and the way she walked but also in a way she couldn't describe. And even though she could capture Soul, _should_ act now insists the presence in her mind, something stops her.

She'll strike tomorrow when Soul has the scythe, Tsubaki decides, ignoring the ire of the puppeteer. It's late anyways and she's tired.

The feeling of making her own choices is exhilarating and for the first time since they've been attached, the puppet strings in her body loosen ever so slightly.


	14. Chapter 14

It's still dark out when Soul is woken by the buzz of angry voices and opens his eyes to find a knife being pointed inches from his face.

"Don't move," orders a voice.

Soul gets a glimpse of the one who is speaking-he's a dwarf but he wears a mask so he can only make out his eyes, narrowed in distrust. Four other dwarves stand next to the dwarf; they're also masked but there's one who towers over the others, body lanky instead of the sturdy build of the other dwarves.

Beside him, Maka rouses in response to his shock and he hears her intake sharply. She springs to her feet in the same instant and knocks the dwarf holding Soul at knifepoint off his feet with a ball of light.

"Come on!" She pulls Soul to his feet but the other dwarves close around them.

"They're Arachne's spies," one of the dwarves thunders. "Let's dispose of them now."

"Wait!" The dwarf who was hit by the light ball staggers to his feet. "Black Star, do you really think Arachne would have a light elf as her spy?"

Recognition buzzes from Maka to Soul and she breaks away from him. "Sid?"

The dwarf pauses and then he pulls off his mask. His features look like they've were carved from the mountainside itself; he peers at her curiously. "Maka?"

"It is you!" She runs headlong at him and the dwarf envelopes her in a hug although she's more than a head taller than him.

The dwarf called Black Star pulls off his mask and addresses Soul as if he hadn't been eager to kill him two minutes ago. "Do you know what's going on?"

Soul watches Maka pull back, eyes shining. "She's just been far away from home for a long time."

Sid shakes his head in awe for the upteenth time as Maka finishes her story. He and the other dwarves lead her and Soul away from the river and into the sandy slopes of the desert surrounding the mountains. "We had all taken you for dead or worse when the invasion plan went wrong."

"Or worse is one way of putting it," she answers. "I can't believe you're still alive."

"I wasn't that old when you were born," Sid grumbles. "Dwarves age a lot slower than even you elves."

Beside her, Soul is trying to pay attention to their conversation while Black Star talks his ear off on the finer points of astronomy and star-gazing. He and the other dwarves had been born after Maka had been imprisoned by Asura, which was why only Sid had recognized her.

"One day, I'm going to reach the stars," the dwarf finishes matter-of-factly. "I don't get what's so great about the underground, dirt is all that's there."

Soul nods. In addition to having nothing to add, he's still stunned by the fact that he's being treated normally by the dwarves, even with the scythe in his hand.

The tall dwarf of the group appears out of nowhere and falls in step with them. "Going on rants again, I see."

Black Star rolls his eyes. "It's the same thing I have to hear when you go on about why diamonds are the best."

"Their molecular structure is such-"

"I'm going," the dwarf declares, patting Soul on the shoulder. "It's your turn to hear it."

He stares after Black Star as the dwarf walks away. "He is-"

"Something," the tall dwarf finishes. There's a fondness in his voice that makes Soul question whether they mean the same thing by "something."

He extends a hand to Soul. "Kid."

"Strange name," he says, shaking his hand.

"So is Soul."

He likes Kid, he decides.

Kid gestures towards the scythe. "I know about Sathros' myths about the Grigori and Kokketsu scythes. I didn't think they could have multiple wielders."

Soul's too tired to hold up walls. "The demon tied to me at birth is possessing the scythe."

"You're bound to a demon?" To his credit, Kid doesn't let shock seep into his voice.

"It's as fun as it sounds." He glances at the blade, expecting to Oni's face to pop up but he sees only his reflection. The night demon has been silent for a while now, he realizes.

"I'm sorry if my questions brought up bad memories," he says.

"Part of life." Soul glances at Kid. "Though I have a question for you. Night elves aren't very popular anywhere, especially if they have this." He holds up the scythe. "So, why don't the you or the others distrust me?"

"You'll see shortly for the others," answers Kid. "But as for me it'd would be awfully hypocritical of me, wouldn't it?" He removes the mask, revealing golden eyes in a pale face, three white stripes weaving through his black hair like rings.

Soul blinks, astonished. "You're a night elf."

"Half," Kid answers. "My mother was a light elf."

"We're here," calls Sid back from just ahead, interrupting Soul's reply. He feels his feet stumble against stone as the path sharply downturns into an underground cave he hadn't even noticed till now.

Kid tilts his head to one side. "I hear Black Star looking for me." He grimaces. "And so will the whole underground if I don't go."

Soul opens his mouth to stop him but gets distracted by someone looping their arm with his, looking down to see Maka. Her skin glows luminously from the happiness radiating off of her. "Did you know there are other night elves here?" he asks.

"Defectors," she answers quickly. "But there are more than just dwarves and night elves here."

He waits.

"There are light elves eyes here." She can hardly contain herself to walking. "Sid told me Arachne tried quietly killing off the light elves who escaped when Asura murdered Vajra but some survived. My parents-"

"They have to be somewhere around here." All of the hope he had felt her bury during their time searching for the group spills across their link and Maka grips his hand tightly. "Do you think my parents are still here? What if they left?"

In front of them, Soul catches Sid stiffen and he keeps his notice of it out of their link. "Then we'll go find them."

The large tunnel they walk in opens up into what looks much like a town square; dwarves and elves, both light and dark, walk among each. Soul notices that the number of light elves are far outnumbered by the dwarves and even the night elves.

The conversations cease as they weave through the square, showing news of Soul and Maka's arrival preceded them.

"My mother's going to like you." Maka takes notice of none of the strange looks both the dwarves and elves give them. She glances up at him. "Though, my father might give you a hard time at first but he'll accept you. Eventually."

He rubs the back of her knuckles with his thumb. "Good to know."

Sid leads the pair into a large room that has smaller tunnels branching off, Kid and Black Star following after them.

"Make yourselves at home," Sid calls out as he veers off into one tunnels. "I'll be right back."

"I'm off to the surface again," Black Star declares to the room. His stomach gives a loud rumble. "After I eat." He glances at Kid. "Coming?"

"In a minute," Kid answers as he follows Maka and Soul to a couch lying against a wall. "You go on ahead."

He sits in a chair opposite of them and speaks as Black Star disappears. "I was wondering if we could talk to you two for a moment."

"Of course." Maka leans against Soul's shoulder.

Kid nods his thanks. "I was a part of a noble family when Arachne and her sisters took over. My mother was a light elf so she was killed during the purge and my father died defending her. Iwas brainwashed by her magic to join her army."

"During a raid on the border, I was captured by rebels," he continues. "Sid recognized I was being influenced by her magic and insisted on not killing me. He took me here where the spell broke. I have spent every second since then trying to find a way to bring peace back to Sathros."

"That brings me to you." Kid's eyes travel to Soul. "An old witch came to us a few weeks ago and said that a new wielder of the Kokketsu scythe was coming. We thought she meant to kill Asura and waited for the news and thought she failed when it never came." He leans forward. "Now I see that she meant to tie another elf to the scythe."

"So who is the scythe's real wielder?" Soul asks.

"You are tied but not bound to the scythe in the way that Asura is," Kid says. "You may summon night but it is not your innate duty to do so. It's your choice to bind to the scythe."

Beside him, Maka tenses, her end of the link going cold.

"But if we were to use both of your powers," Kid says, "We could break into Baba Yaga, Maka could take back the Grigori scythe and together, you could bring back the day." He looks from Soul to Maka. "What do you say?"

"I thought I told you not to ambush my guests, Kid." Sid comes carrying a tray full of steaming cups of tea.

Heat enters Kid's voice. "This is the best chance we have and-"

"And I don't want to hear it," Sid says firmly. "You know where we and the rest think about this."

"Yes, and you know what I think." Kid stands. He looks at Maka and Soul. "Thank you for hearing me out." To Sid, he says without looking at him, "I'm going to find Black Star."

"Sorry you had to hear that," Sid apologizes after the elf leaves, lying the tray on a table in front of the couch and taking his seat. "Kid and I don't see eye-to-eye on a few things."

Maka speaks for the first time since Kid had talked to them. "But what he says makes sense," she argues. "Why shouldn't we try to bring back the day? The resistance is strong enough to handle it."

Sid pick up a cup but doesn't drink. "The resistance doesn't exist anymore," he says finally. "What you see now is us picking up stragglers and trying to survive."

She become as still as a statue. "What?"

"I was hoping to ease you into this but Kid had to open his mouth," Sid sighs. He takes a swig of his drink. "The resistance persisted for a while after you vanished," he starts. "Neither Spirit nor Kami were the same when they learned you disappeared. We thought a new light elf that could wield the Grigori scythe would eventually show up among us and the question of whether you were alive or not would be answered."

He looked up. "Clearly, there never was. While most of us assumed that Asura had found a way to stop your soul being passed down, your parents were convinced that you were alive and they threw themselves into every invasion effort." Sid's finger taps against the handle of his knife. "Rebellion is a dangerous business."

Maka's lips barely move. "What are you saying?"

Sid leans forward, eyes soft with sympathy. "They were killed in an undercover raid in Sathros."

Soul waits to see how Maka reacts but she does absolutely nothing. He feels nothing from her side of the link at all.

Then her head snaps up and fire burns in her eyes. "If my parents died trying to find out if I was alive, then I'm going to finish what I failed to do." She rises in one fluid movement. "Where's Kid?"

Soul mirrors her. "Maka-"

"This is my decision," she interrupts, sensing his disagreement. "Just like the decision to be the wielder of the Kokketsu scythe is yours."

He doesn't keep the bite of anger out of his voice. "So if you get killed doing this-"

"My decision," she repeats, glaring at Soul.

He glares right back at her.

There's a knock at the door and Sid gets up, relief plain on his face. He opens the door and a dwarf wearing armor enters. "What is it?"

"We found another elf, sir," the dwarf says. "She's one of Arachne's but we think she has a spell on her."

"Where is she?" Sid demands.

The dwarf hesitates. "She took down three of us before we captured her so we put her under and placed her in the special holding cell."

"Give me a minute and I'll go," says Sid and the dwarf nods before leaving.

"I'm going too." Maka moves toward the dwarf.

He shakes his head

"I know what you're thinking," Soul whispers to her as they follow Sid out.

She levels a glower at him. "And I know you're not going to tell."

"No," he sighs. "It's just a bad idea."

"If we can break Arachne's hold on the elf, then maybe she'll be able to help us get into Baba Yaga," Maka says in a low voice. "It's our best shot of making it in."

"You also know I don't agree with that."

"I know."

The elf's cell is reinforced by steel made by the dwarves themselves, Sid informs them as they enter an observation area, fixed with a mirror that lets them see in. Soul lets out a groan as he sees it's Tsubaki who is the elf lying unconscious on the cell's bed.

He's surprised to hear simultaneous gasps from Sid and Maka and turns to look at them. "Did you fight against her from before?"

Sid shakes his head grimly. "Just the opposite."

Maka approaches the glass as if she's in a trance. She touches the glass, eyes wide. "She's my sister."


	15. Chapter 15

Soul finds Maka in the square, now emptied and dark. She stands next to one of the closed merchant booths and doesn't move when she senses his presence..

"Tsubaki was orphaned during the first rebellion," she says. "Her parents were some of its leaders."

He stops just behind her and listens.

"My parents found her wandering by the border and took her in and raised us together." She hunches forward, as if to shield herself from the hurt he feels pulsing in her. "She was the first to volunteer to go with me when I proposed we invade Sathros' mountain."

He places his hands tentatively on her shoulders. "I'm sorry."

She softens at Soul's touch. "I need to talk to her but Sid won't let me go near her." She twists her head. "Will you help me?"

"I've known her for a while." He hesitates. "The magic changed her."

Maka keeps her grief well-hidden on the rest of her face but her eyes can't lie. "Please."

Soul looks at her for another second before giving in. "All right."

* * *

Tsubaki wakes to find herself in a small room with a mirror opposite of the bed she lies on. She tries to move her hands and feet only to discover them bound in chains.

"Hello."

Her eyes flick over to the other side of the room where the light elf from her dreams stands. She blinks rapidly, attempting to shrug off the hallucination.

The elf takes a step forward. "Do you remember me?"

"No."

They both know it's a lie.

She takes another step. "I remember you."

"Where am I?" Tsubaki demands.

The light elf pauses. "Do the Lorios mountains mean anything to you?"

Her answer is yes and no and she can't see the sense in that at all.

"Maybe," she concedes.

"There's a river outside of here," the elf says. "Do you remember anything with that?"

Something springs to the forefront of her mind but Arachne's voice echoes from the puppeteer and the fog over her memories thickens.

"No." Her head is pounding. "I don't know."

"Maybe this will help." Light dances from the elf's hands and she moves until she's standing in front of Tsubaki.

The elf places her hands on her temples before she can protest and light floods her vision and mind.

It chases out the fog, erases Arachne's voice, clears her body of the puppet strings dictating her every move. And she remembers everything, all that she was before she was captured and everything she became afterwards.

She is lighter and heavier than she has ever been.

The weights tying her down loosen as she is freed her from her chains. She sits up. "Maka."

Her sister takes a place next to her and takes her hand, eyes brimming with tears. "We've both been through a lot, I think," she says finally.

She laughs once.

The tears spill out before she's even aware that she's crying and, for the first time in a century, Tsubaki begins to sob.

* * *

From Baba Yaga, Arachne drinks in the face of the elf she had sealed away one hundred years ago, still as death.

Then, the Demon Shadow's connection winks out and Arachne feels her presence in her mind vanish completely.

She leans back into her throne with a sigh. She would no longer be able to count on the night elf.

Extending out a hand, one of her spiders crawls onto her and she brings her hand to her lips, murmuring softly.

She observes as it scuttles off before going to the room she keeps Asura in.

In his sleep, the elf is as fitful as he is when he's awake, thrashing about and muttering things only he understands.

Bending down, Arachne brushes back the hair from his face and his movements calm somewhat. "Don't worry," she says lowly. "I will fix everything."

She leaves after a few minutes and enters the room next to Asura's.

From its pedestal, the Grigori scythe glints like diamonds and Arachne stares at it before moving to close the curtain on the large window overlooking the mountain peak.

"Everything will be as it should be."

* * *

Their link was not real, according to Kid, and yet she and Soul work in perfect tandem, not even needing look at each other before Maka goes to fetch Sid and bring him to Tsubaki's cell while he finds Kid.

Sid's expression is mixed with equal parts of happiness and melancholy at the sight of Tsubaki.

She's cleaned herself up in the time they'd been gone, shedding the heavy armor bearing Arachne's symbol but there is nothing anyone can do to fix the anguish in her eyes.

Kid either has no sense of perception or pretends not to notice the heaviness in the room. "This is the night elf that the others mentioned?"

"The very same," Tsubaki responds icily. She stiffens. "I'm sorry-"

She takes a deep breath. "This is just taking some getting used to."

Sid moves for the first time and sits next to Tsubaki. "It's good to see you again."

"Thank you." Her voice is quiet and she bows her head. "Even though it was under Arachne's magic, I killed a lot of people," she says. "And I want to make up for it."

She looks up. "I know where the Grigori scythe is."

"How?" Kid asks.

"I was part of Arachne's guard," Tsubaki answers. "I saw the Grigori scythe once when one of the witches ordered it to be repaired and I saw when they stored it away again. They put it in the chamber sitting outside the mountain peak."

Maka is stunned for all of a few seconds before laughing hollowly at the irony. "That's the same place where I was caught."

Kid paces the cell, unable to contain his energy. He looks imploringly to Sid. "This is everything we needed to know to mount a successful invasion."

The dwarf glances at Maka. "I assume I know your answer already."

She nods.

Sid's eyes shift to Soul, who stands next to her. "And how do you feel being the bait?"

She can't look at him and she won't touch their connection, lest she influenced his choice.

"So long as I'm not strung up on a silver platter, I'm fine with it," he says.

"Ropes and chains, maybe." Kid rubs his hands. "But no silver platter."

* * *

Maka sights Sathros' mountain first. She halts her horse with a tug of her reins and runs her gaze across what she used to call home.

"Black hair suits you." Soul's voice comes from beside her. "But golden hair looks even better."

He already has his hands in the ropes that Tsubaki tied carefully so they'll come loose when he pulls on them. The Kokketsu scythe rests on his back in a sling; it's less of a likelihood than a certainty of it being detected upon entering the mountain but the important thing is they get in.

"Good, because this itches," she says, resisting the urge to rub at the wig.

He laughs.

"Soul, the bond-" Maka swallows and forces out the words. "It's not a real one like the others were. You didn't have to come with me and you don't have to stay after."

He's about to answer when Tsubaki comes into the glen. "We're ready to move out now." She nods at Soul approvingly. "You fit the part of prisoner well."

"I'm just glad it's not the real thing."

"As am I." Regret traces her features.

"Tsubaki-"Maka starts.

Shaking her head, the night elf rolls back her shoulders and walks away. "Sorry, I'm going to check on the last of the preparations."

"She needs time to process," Soul says.

"I know," she admits reluctantly. "It's just hard to watch and do nothing."

"Being there for her and doing nothing are not the same thing."

She looks down to him and smiles. "Thank you."

He returns the smile and straightens. "Ready?"

She fixes her eyes on the darkness crawling over her land. "Yes."

* * *

Tsubaki curses under her breath, prompting Maka to look up. "What is it?"

"Giriko's the one opening the gates," she mutters. "That's a job for a soldier, not a commander."

Maka's mouth runs dry at the mention of Giriko. While she'd never faced off with him, she'd heard horror stories from elves whose loved ones had been his victims and had once ventured into the aftermath of the battle he'd been in.

She had retched until there was nothing left in her stomach.

Tsubaki lifts her head high. "Let me do the talking." She shoves no fear when they arrive at the gates and moves with graceful confidence, hailing the commander by pulling the Kokketsu scythe from her saddle. "Look alive," she snaps to Soul.

"This is quite the surprise, Demon Shadow," Girkiko calls from the guardpost. We'd taken you for dead when your squadron returned without you."

"You obviously don't know me well at all, Commander," Tsubaki replies evenly. She gestures to Soul. "When Arachne wants something, I will do everything in my power to fulfill my duty."

Giriko's smirk vanishes briefly before resurging with a disgusting brilliance. "Admirable words, Captain." He tilts his head to Sid and the rest of the dwarves. "And these gentlemen are?"

"Dwarven mercenaries," she answers. "I've invited them to Baba Yaga for their aid in helping me capture the night elf."

"I'm impressed." He calls to someone over his shoulder and a weaselly-looking soldier appears; he whispers in his ear. "I've just sent orders for a feast to be prepared with only the best food and wine for some of our finest heroes."

His gaze travels up and down Maka for a moment before going to Soul. "After all it's not every day that you catch a traitor."


	16. Chapter 16

As soon as the doors to Baba Yaga close behind them, Maka knows something is wrong. The mountain, which she remembers teeming with life, is empty, practically desolate save for the squad of guards waiting at the stairs of the entrance hall.

"Killing two birds with one stone as usual." Giriko's tone is merry as he walks up to Tsubaki and crushes her in a hug. The night elf tenses momentarily before loosening up.

He holds out his hands. "I can take the scythe from here."

Tsubaki sidesteps the situation deftly. "I was given strict orders to give the scythe to no one but Arachne or Asura."

Giriko stares at Tsubaki and she stares steadily back.

"The Demon Shadow is truly a soldier of the highest caliber," he comments finally. He turns. "Very well, we will go together to deliver the scythe and the traitor to Lady Arachne."

"Won't we need a representative from the dwarves as well?" Tsubaki interjects.

"You're absolutely right." Giriko's gaze is more like that of a predator than an elf as his eyes rest on Maka again. "Why don't you come with us? I'm sure Lady Arachne will be intrigued to hear how such a lovely dwarf fell in with mercenaries."

Maka nods in agreement, keeping her head low.

Stepping back, Giriko addresses the dwarves. "Now, I know the rest of you must be starving so my soldiers will take you to our dining hall, where you'll be shown our finest hospitality."

Maka watches the band of dwarves march after the soldiers while she follows Giriko out of the room. Dread knots in her stomach as they climb up a flight of stairs. They had planned on opening the gates to Kid and the rest of their reinforcements within the first five minutes of entering the mountain and Giriko had divided them with ease.

They don't speak as they climb the stairs but the tension continues to stretch thin. Giriko breaks the silence when they reach the landing for the floor leading to the top of the mountain.

"Now I don't question much," he says as he faces the three, Soul standing between him and Tsubaki and Maka. "But when did you start calling our mistress simply Arachne and not Lady Arachne?"

Tsubaki moves quickly but Giriko moves faster, pulling Soul in front of him and holding his knife to his throat.

Maka lets out a hiss through her teeth and nearly launches forward before the force of Soul's warning halts her through their link.

Beside her, the Kokketsu scythe lies on the floor from where Tsubaki dropped it. She doesn't lower the throwing knife in her hand. "Don't do anything you regret."

"Regret is for the weak, Demon Shadow." He laughs once. "Now move."

Maka locks eyes with Soul, a beat of understanding pulsing between them. In the second that she passes Giriko, she lets loose a ray of light and sends him stumbling back while Soul dives down.

The teeth of his knife graze her neck as he lashes out, rage snarling his face, and she stumbles backwards.

Then, Giriko's expression is wiped clean and he slumps to the floor.

Maka feels Soul at her side as she watches Tsubaki pluck her knife from Giriko's chest. "I'm no longer the Demon Shadow."

She looks back towards the staircase. "It sounds like they're having a grand time downstairs. I'd better let Kid in and see what I can do." she says. "Will you be all right?"

"Go." Maka says. "We'll return when the day returns as well."

* * *

Their way to the where the Grigori scythe waits is unimpeded by obstacles of any kind and Maka is reminded too much of what had happened one hundred years ago. She swallows as she eyes the door leading the antechamber to the mountain peak.

"I'm here." Soul's voice is low in her ear. "You're not alone."

Looking up, she places a hand on his face for a moment. Then she faces the door and takes a deep breath.

It's like time never flowed in the antechamber. Everything is like it was a hundred years ago; Maka feels it in her step as she sprints across the room, hand outstretched for the Grigori scythe.

Only this time, she reaches the Grigori scythe-she pulls it from the pedestal, feels the scythe connect to her soul and swings around, expecting a trap to be set off but what she sees is much worse.

Spiders run down from the walls and Arachne's voice sounds from them all. "Welcome."

"I'm afraid you're a bit too slow, like always." Maka spins around as the witch steps out from the shadows behind her.

Maka follows Arachne's gaze: in the front of the room stands Asura, Kokketsu scythe in his hands, darkness uncoiling around him like the fraying scarves wrapped around his body. And in one of them, Soul struggles in one of the coils.

His eyes lock with Maka's and he yells, "Go, they're trying to distract you!"

Asura flicks his hand like he's shooing away a fly and the darkness knocks Soul into the wall, his head hitting the stone floor with a sharp crack.

Panic courses through Maka's veins, feeling through her link for Soul. He's out cold but his heartbeat is strong.

Her vision turns red; Maka doesn't give herself time to think and shoots towards Arachne, swinging the Grigori scythe in a wide arc. The witch doesn't move to shield herself from Maka's blow as a resounding clang fills the room as the blade of her scythe collides with the Kokketsu scythe's blade, sending her fumbling back.

Asura's eyes are unfocused as he stalks toward her.

Maka feels a trickle of fear slide down her spine. The night elf was losing his mind but where she's only held the Grigori scythe once, he's wielded the Kokketsu scythe for a century.

She's too focused on the scythe in the night elf's hand that she doesn't feel the shadow looping around her legs until she's in the air. A cry rips from her lips as she is blasted through the window and out onto the mountaintop, the Grigori scythe tearing from her hands and skittering out of her reach.

Maka's world spins as she struggles to her feet and summons a bubble of light in her hands.

"Vajra?"

She sees two of Asura as the night elf stops in his charge towards Maka, eyes wide. "Vajra, why?" He lets out a sharp keening sound and bats away the light ball she hurls at him with the blade of the scythe. "Vajra, why did you betray me?"

Flinging her hands in front of herself, Maka shuts her eyes. She waits but the blow never comes.

She waits some more before opening her eyes.

Soul stands hunched in front of her, arms outstretched.

His hand is wrapped around the scythe handle, the point of the Kokketsu scythe sticks out from his back.

* * *

Darkness crushes his body until the only sign that he exists are his thoughts and Soul figures this is what it means to die.

"Did you think it was going to be that easy?"

His eyes snap open and he's no longer in the dark but in a space where neither light nor night exists.

Wes stands in front of Soul, skin tinged with grey.

He lurches for his brother but when his hands go through him like smoke.

"You killed me." Wes re-materializes back in front of Soul. "You were too close and the stench of your magic rubbed off on me."

Every failure drops on him, every fault that cracks his soul into ugly pieces widens and every fiber of is wrongwrongwrong. And it is too much, too heavy for him to handle so he falls.

He's slipping into nothingness when a voice from somewhere far away calls his name and he remembers.

There had someone who had seen everything he was and wasn't and accepted everything.

There had been someone who had seen him for what he was and hadn't left.

There was someone who had stayed.

He sucks in a breath; he refuses to run away anymore.

Standing takes every inch of Soul's strength and more; his doubts wrap anchors around his legs and the temptation to give in and give up pulls at him invitingly.

But when he's standing, it's on his own two feet.

"Congratulations." Oni's eyes glitter from Wes' face. "You have been deemed worthy." The demon sniffs at Asura writhing on the floor. "Unlike him."

Soul's astonishment keeps from speaking for a few moments.

"How are you here if I'm dead?" he manages.

"Is it not obvious?" Oni resumes his original form. "I brought your souls into the scythe."

He blinks. "Why?"

"It was you who said I was useless without a wielder," the demon says. "This is my way of rectifying that." He frowns. "You are still my best option."

"This was a test?"

"It's to your benefit too," the demon says. "Currently, you are bleeding out on the floor in the real world."

Losing his patience, he becomes exasperated. "Then why do this at all?"

"Because you have a choice," Oni answers. "Live or die."

Soul does not follow. "What do you mean?"

"If you choose to stay here, you'll die a quick and painful death," Oni states calmly. "If you choose to go into the light," he gestures to a ring of light outside of the grey circle. "Then, you'll live."

He eyes the demon suspiciously. "How do I know that you're telling the truth?"

Oni sneers. "Did I not say you were my best option?"

Soul steps into the light without any further hesitation.

He closes his eyes as the light sweeps over him. It doesn't scare him anymore or reminds him of his flaws or failures.

Instead, it sings him courage and feels like Maka.

* * *

Soul first becomes aware of being cradled in someone's arms and then of his heartbeat. The rest of the feeling in his body comes back to him in starts and stops. He screws up what remains of his strength and opens his eyes.

Maka has her hand pressed to his chest and pulses energy into his body, eyes narrowed in concentration as tears stream down her face.

He covers her hand with his. "I don't think that's no longer necessary."

"Soul!" Her arms constrict around him

"I think I was," he says. "For a minute, at least." He strokes her hand. "But you brought me back."

"You scared me, you know," Maka says. "I couldn't lose you too." She wipes her face and smiles but he feels her pain keenly.

"I will never do such a thing again."

Her smile widens. "Good."

She holds tight to Soul as she helps him to his feet and he struggles to twist his head; like during his time in the scythe, Asura lies in agony on the ground, lost in his hallucinations. "Arachne?"

Maka looks to where the Grigori scythe stands straight up from where it's embedded in Arachne's chest. "No longer a problem. I-"

Her voice is breathless. "Look."

Soul follows her pointing finger and his mouth drops open as the warmth from the rising sun spills out across Sathros.

Even with his time in Traicor, Soul has never seen the sunlight sweep in with such a rapid and dazzling glow, as if the sunlight had missed bathing the land. It's beautiful in a way that nearly overpowers his senses.

Maka's own light shines as brilliantly as the day, casting them in her glow, but the smile on her face from moments ago is missing

Her brow becomes furrowed and her grip around his waist grows suddenly vicelike. "Do you they'd be proud?" she asks

Soul pretends not to notice the tears brimming in her eyes but he tucks her close to his side. "I know they are."

Maka buries her face in his shoulder, absolutely quiet except for the small tremors she gives as she cries.

They hold onto each other like that until the sun has completely risen.


	17. Chapter 17

They're still on the peak when Kid finds them. Along with the other rebels, he had taken over the rest of the mountain while Soul and Maka had confronted Asura and Arachne. He quickly takes charge in dealing with the fallout and with Asura, who they find on the floor of the Grigori Scythe's antechamber, little more than a rambling sack of flesh and bone raving over the spot where Arachne had fallen.

Even with everything he had put Soul through, he can't quite bring himself to hate the night elf; there had been too many similarities he had seen in him during in their fight over the Kokketsu scythe that made true hatred impossible.

Kid takes up the mantle of leadership like a second skin, setting up an emergency council as government and directing the business of announcing the return of the light elves and Grigori scythe wielder to the rest of Sathros. He insists on Soul going to the infirmary despite his many protests of already being healed by Maka-eventually the night elf's persistence wins out and Soul agrees to go.

He spends the rest of the day in the overflowing infirmary. Nurses rush back and forth, attending to injured elves from both sides; many of the elves from Asura's side, who were under the influence of Arachne's magic, are baffled to find themselves hurt, clearly having no memory or knowledge of what they forced to do under the magic's influence. And even though he is itching to leave, Soul insists on nurses attending to them first whenever they come his way.

Maka stays with him at first, but Soul can sense her growing unease at being surrounded by so many night elves, especially ones who were exactly as she was when she came out of the cave. That she's still mourning the loss of so many she loved doesn't help either.

"You don't have to be here if you don't want to," he says after a while.

She gives him a startled look. "What? No, I'm-"

"You're not fine." He sits up from the makeshift cot he had been given to lie on. "Go find some fresh air, you need to rest too."

Maka frowns and crosses her arms, unmoving.

"And it's not like I won't know where to find you," he adds.

A reluctant smile breaks over her face. "All right," she concedes. Her hand flutters, like she wants to grab his hand, but she stands instead. "I'll be waiting."

"And I'll be here," he says, gesturing to the noisy, overcrowded room.

"Lucky you." She gives him a wan smile before walking away.

Soul doesn't leave the infirmary for another six hours. When he is finally cleared to leave, he finds the chaos in the rest of the mountain has finally died down, where tension and dread pervaded the space, a hopeful airiness now pervades the mountain.

Finding Maka's presence sitting on the edge of his mind, he tugs on his end of their link and feels her pull back in reply. He climbs higher and higher into the mountain as he follows their connection and finds her exactly where he would have gone to be alone.

Maka sits perched on the edge of the mountain peak and turns her head when she hears Soul approaching, eyes lighting up. Her bloodied armor has been replaced by a simple tunic and her cuts have been tended, the Grigori scythe resting at her side. They say nothing as Soul settles next to her and watch the setting sun paint the sky in colors Soul never dreamed it could possibly exist in Sathros' skies.

She lets out a tiny breath after the sun has nearly disappeared beneath the horizon. "There's still a lot of work to do."

He nods.

There's a pause before Maka says what she wants to say.

"It hurts," she says simply. "But it will get better in time."

"It's okay if it never goes away." He turns his gaze to her face. "But I'll be here."

"I didn't mean-" Her cheeks bloom with the color of the setting sun. "I mean, of course I want you around but I'm not going to stop you if there's somewhere else you want to be."

"Funny that you say that." Soul takes her hand; his voice is shaking slightly as he speaks but he weaves his fingers securely in the spaces between hers. "Because I'm already where I want to be."

When their lips meet this time, Maka's free hand cupping the back of his neck, he thinks nothing of their bond or who they are.

Just Maka.

She traces a finger down his cheek after they pull away, breath mingling together. "So am I."


End file.
